The Things You Don't Know
by Chair Meow
Summary: To be a Herondale one must know what Herondales are and Jace may well choose to ignore that side of him forever. Until Magnus starts bringing a mysterious figure around and Jace finally learns what it means to "learn from the past". R&R! Crossover! MI/ID
1. Chapter 1

XXXXX ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO CASSANDRA CLARE XXXXX

There were many certainties in life.

Like the sound of waves crashing against the shore and the warmth of the sun on a summer day. Sometimes, when Magnus Bane was particularly down, he would strut along Coney Island and watch the mundanes live their mundane lives completely oblivious to the dangers around them. They would hold hands, kiss, hug and laugh.

But it was the dead of winter and there was no sun or ocean near him. Instead, he walked through Chinatown with single-minded determination. He didn't even stop to look at glittery flowers hanging from a wreath in a little corner shop. His feet took him where he'd never been before…where he never suspected he'd ever go.

The building he found himself staring at was nothing much. The red brick seemed to be fading, the fire ladders peeling. There was one narrow wood door with a row of dirty intercom buttons by it. It was entirely unremarkable, so normal it was almost painful for him to look at it.

He stepped up to the door, his cat-eyes scanning the names by the intercom. He knew not a single one and yet he was sure he had the right place. With his kind of influence, these bits of information were rarely wrong. But than he saw it, or rather felt it, as his hand hovered over apartment 9B. The last name Jin had been decorated with a green dragon that spit silver fire.

Magnus almost laughed at that.

He pressed the button, waited, and pressed it again. A minute passed by without and an answer, than another and he began to wonder how long he would have to wait or if this trail was simply one that had gone cold and the person he was looking for was long gone.

He took a step backwards into the sidewalk and looked up. It wouldn't be hard at all to break into the building and into the apartment in itself. For warlocks like him, such acts were about as easy to accomplish as breathing. He rocked on his heels, wandering what the repercussions would be when he heard the soft jingle of keys.

"I know that look," said a soft, warm voice from behind his right shoulder. "The one you get right before you do something wrong."

"I imagine you are familiar with it because you catch it on your own face so often," he replied breezly as he turned to face the newcomer.

She was almost entirely hidden beneath a heavy black coat. Pale brown hair peaked from under her hat while her small hands fumbled in the pocket of her coat. "A seemingly solid argument, I suppose," she responded in the same tone. "Have you been waiting for long, Magnus?"

"I have only just arrived." He swept her a look, silently pleading that she would look up and meet his eyes with hers. "Would you like a hand with those flowers?"

She was cradling a bouquet of roses to her chest with one arm as she pulled a ring of keys from her pocket with the other. "Oh, please. That would be wonderful." She transferred the bouquet gently, like it was too precious to bend any of those sleek petals. She started to open the door. "I'm afraid the elevator is broken, Magnus. We'll—"

His hand had already closed over her shoulder and like in a fading dream the world seemed to blur and reappear almost immediately. They were standing in front of 9B, nine floors above where they had been seconds before. She giggled that sweet, melodies giggle. "I do enjoy that trick," she informed him with a grin. For a moment, she even looked her age.

"It's very simple," Magnus reminded her.

"Yet I prefer to go through life with as little intervention as possible," she reminded him. Setting another key to her front door, she looked over her shoulder. "How did you know this was it?"

"Jin is the word for metal. And your pretty little jade dragon breathing silver fire only confirmed my theory. You always did leave the nicest glues, Tessa," he chuckled as she pushed the door open and granted him entry into her home.

Tessa Gray lived in a very clean and serene space. Everywhere Magnus looked dark brown splotches added depth to a neutral balance of taupe, tan and vanilla tones. And yet everything was busy at the same time; the fabric on her overstuffed sofas and her curtains were is as diverse in graphics as her modern and ancient Chinese rosewood furniture.

A minimalist approach was taken with carefully selected accessories — a potted orchid gracefully arching in front of a window, white mats that set off photographs in simple black and silver frames, an oval wooden tray that provides a resting spot for similarly shaped candleholders.

It was all about seriousness and understated vibrancy.

It was Tessa Gray.

"That explains the apartment, Magnus. But not how you found me," she mused.

Turning, Magnus granted her a shrug. "Where else would you go? The busyness and noise of New York with the elegance of London and the familiarity of Jem…or I suppose, Chinatown."

As she shed her heavy winter coat and pulled her scarf free of her neck, Tessa granted him a sad smile. "Am I that easily found, then?"

Magnus shook his head. "On the contrary. One must know you well to ever find you. This place is beautiful, Tessa. All the old and the new together."

"Thank you." She held her hand out of his jacket and Magnus immediately pulled it off. He could feel those pensive grey eyes studying him even as he turned his attention back to unbuttoning his star buttons. "Could I offer you some tea?"

"White?"

She grinned. "Of course."

He followed her through a doorway into a sparse, equally white kitchen. She set the kettle under the tap and then transferred it to the stove before she turned to her cabinets and produced an antique tea set in silver. She went about arranging saucers and cups, tiny spoons and a honey pot in a matching silver tray.

"I think I'm surprised, Magnus," she said after a while.

He'd been watching her hands working, long fingers surely grasping everything with methodical precision. The kind only a person who'd done the same movement thousands of times before could do. "You think?"

"After our meeting in Alicante I thought it would be a while before I saw you again," she told him. The kettle began to whistle and she quickly and quietly filled the teapot before dispersing tealeaves into the water. "Living room?"

Picking up the tray, she led the way again. He had to follow, smiling to himself when he came to the realization that aside from the colorful yellow lantern he could see from her window, he was the brightest thing in her home. "We've been terrible about keeping touch, you know."

"You are busy man," she began, "and I'm busy reading through Jane Austin's novels."

"Again?"

Tessa grinned. "They are some of my favorites. Sugar or honey?"

"Neither, thank you." He accepted his cup and saucer and he couldn't help but wonder when they, old, old friends, had returned to such polite and distant tones. "Tessa?"

She was lifting was teacup to her lips. Her hands froze. It was the first time their eyes had made direct contact.

Magnus remembered clearly a time when those eyes had stared at him with awe and curiousity. He remembered how wide they had been and how anything he did caused in her great burst of desire for more knowledge. She had always wanted to learn.

Now they were reserved, attentive, yet not questioning. "Yes?"

"_I_ thought that after Alicante you would have stepped forward to meet the children."

The words hung in the air.

Tessa's hand was steady as she sipped her tea. Her lips were pressed tight, one rigid line on her face. "The children. That Lightwood boy is truly beautiful, Magnus, but young. So very young."

"They are all very young. The young ones need the most guidance." It wasn't exactly what she'd been referring to, but Magnus didn't want to discuss his own life when it was obvious that she was avoiding hers.

"I know from experience, Magnus, that no one can offer guidance quite like you. You made me what I am."

Magnus had no doubt that he was responsible for many of the things Tessa had become. From a shape-shifter to a talented warlock, he'd taught Tessa everything that he knew. Everything he had been able to teach.

"And yet I can't quite offer a glimpse into the past," Magnus reminded her.

"Is that why you are here?" Tessa stood, beginning to pace across the room. He hadn't paid much attention to her wardrobe until now. Gone were the corsets and petticoats of old and in were the sleek trousers and expensive knit sweaters. Resting against her bare throat was the clockwork angel that had once caused so much trouble and offered them salvation, too.

"Did they not even peak your curiosity?"

"The children?"

He was getting tired of her silly go-arounds. "Alec has two siblings—" Magnus's throat tightened, "he had two siblings. Isabelle and Max. Max was murderer by Valentine's son."

Tessa didn't stop pacing, but she didn't tell him to stop talking either so Magnus didn't. At the mention of Valentine, her eyes narrowed, but she stayed silent.

"Isabella is a fighter. A good one, but she's pathless. Max's death has…derailed her. And Alec is sensitive. He's thoughtful and he's gentle. It's easy to forget that he can take care of himself. You never expect someone so quiet to be so—"

"Capable?" Tessa whispered.

"Does it sound familiar?" He inquired.

Tessa's eyes flashed with anger. But she bit her tongue.

"Clarissa is learning. She has a long way to go, but she's talented. Very talented."

"Angel children usually are."

Magnus was silent for a while. "And then there's Jace. The Herondale name will die with him if you don't do something."

"If I don't do something?" In anyone else, Magnus would have called that a shriek, but from Tessa it sounded more like…pure anger. "I fail to see why you think I can correct this."

"Jace doesn't see himself as a Herondale because he's never met anyone who could tell him about his family. Imogen sacrificed herself for him and Amantis can't bring herself to talk about Stephen without crying. If you could at least—"

"Tell him about Will?" The strangled words came from her parted lips. "You think that if I told him everything I know about Will that it will change his view of his family? It wouldn't, Magnus. It would just convince him that he should let the name die."

She set her teacup down so loudly on the tray that he feared she would break the beautiful bone china. Tessa was shaking.

"Loss has made you bitter, Tessa."

She set her jaw. He'd never seen her like this. "You can see yourself out, Magnus."

She stood, heading to a closed door. "Tessa, he's so much like Will that it's frightening. So reckless, so bold. He doesn't understand self-preservation, yet he would do anything to save his friends. Or Clary. He loves her. Like Will loved you."

She didn't look at him. And when the door closed quietly, Magnus wondered if he'd said all the wrong things.


	2. Chapter 2

XXXXX ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO CASSANDRA CLARE XXXXX

The Revelation, as Clary had begun to call the knowledge of their angel blood, had sent Jace into a frenzy of experiments. There were hours spent in the dead of the night, jumping from rooftop to rooftop until he'd found the maximum distance he could conquer. He went around trying to lift the chunkiest pieces of furniture just to prove that he could.

It had done nothing for his humbleness.

Clary watched him walk through the library doors, grinning at the obvious smugness Jace always paraded around. "What have you managed to do now that the rest of the world can't?" She asked as he dropped to a chaise and threw one arm over his face.

"Every thing I do has so much greatness that for me to begin explaining to you my awesomeness would require that we never left this room ever again," he began. "And I don't particularly like sharing a chaise with you. You move around too much."

"Not to mention I would get sick of listening to you," Clary pointed out.

He lifted his arm from his face, his narrowed eyes scanning her face before he chuckled. "That, too." He rearranged his entire body on the chaise, his bare feet hanging from the edge. "What are you doing?"

"Reading the _Codex_."

"That junk is useless," he muttered.

"You call it useless today, but tomorrow you get annoyed if I don't know the smallest detail in here," Clary said.

"You are smarter than you look."

"And for every wonderful, sweet thing you say to me, to also say something incredibly irritating."

She looked back down at the book resting on her lap. The words went on and on, centuries of Shadowhunter history she would have known by heart had she been raised a Shadowhunter. It was like playing catch-up in school after missing every class from kindergarten to high school.

It was easy for Jace to demand that she throw herself wholeheartedly into learning, but he didn't understand how essentially suspicious and frightening this whole world was to her. For every heroic instinct she had, there was an equally strong reflex to turn tail and run.

He would probably never understand that.

"You love still me, don't you?"

"Some one has to." Magnus stood at the door way, covered in green glitter and gold jewelry.

"Is it St. Patrick's already?" Jace grumbled, obviously not happy at having his private time interrupted.

"Was that a comment on my wardrobe?"

Jace opened his mouth, but Clary cut him off. "Hey! I just got to the warlock part of the book. Wanna give me some insight?"

"We're sterile and frightening," he replied in clipped tone. At hearing his own voice though, he let out a deep sigh and shook his head. "Sorry. Maybe some other time."

Clary and Jace exchanged a look. "Alec is out, if that's who you came looking for."

"Actually, I was looking for Isa—"

"Right here, Rainbow." She materialized behind his shoulder.

Izzy was dressed in black clothing, her white skin standing out against her dark clothes. There were dark circles under her eyes and a growing bruise on her arm.

"What happened to you?" Clary squeaked. She was on her feet, already running towards Izzy.

"I literally walked into a pillar on the subway," Izzy told her as Clary examined the bruise.

"What?" Jace lifted golden eyebrows. He didn't look like he believed her.

"I was wandering. And then I just kind of ran into it." She sounded convincing enough and she looked like she could be telling the truth. Every one knew that Izzy's attention was now so fractured and distant that they shouldn't put it past her to do something as simple as running into innate objects.

"Let me go get my steele," Clary muttered turning back the desk.

"It's fine, I just want a shower," she said. Turning to Magnus, she scanned his outfit with a grin. "What about you? What can I do for you?"

"Have you seen Simon? I've been trying to find Camille for the last two days and I thought he might know where—"

Isabelle's jaw clamped together so hard that Jace would have sworn that he heard her teeth grinding. Her nostrils flared and her eyes narrowed into slits. If looks could Magnus would have dropped dead. "What? Does he keep her schedule now? Are they that inseparable that she can't go anywhere without telling him? And why do you care where she's at? Are we not enough company for you anymore?"

Clary's eyes were wide and for once Jace was entirely speechless. He looked between Magnus and Izzy, only half sure that he wouldn't burst out into laughter at the unfolding events. The only thing that kept him from making fun of the situation was the tears pulling in Izzy's eyes.

"Oh, poor us little mortals! You're right, Magnus. You should stop hanging out with the dying humans. Vampires are obviously so much better company!" She spun on her heels, her hair whipping at Magnus's chest as she stormed off.

"What just…" Jace shook his head. "Someone explain…"

"She didn't mean that, Magnus," Clary said quietly and Jace looked at the warlock.

"What? Iz storms off and you are worried about Magnus' feelings?"

"She's jealous. She's upset, but she didn't mean it. She knows you love Alec." Clary ignored Jace, setting her hand on Magnus' arm and looking completely reassuring and supportive. "This is just about her and Simon. No one else really has anything to do with it."

"I'm gonna go talk to her," Jace said as he rolled off the chaise.

"What?" That got Clary's attention.

"Isn't this what normal people do?"

"Sit down. You don't exactly have the touch." She looked back at Magnus. "Are you okay?"

He wasn't looking as shocked by Izzy's outburst. In fact, he was starting to look strangely pensive. "That certainly throws a wrench on my plans."

"Excuse me?"

"There's no love lost between Isabelle and Camille." He rubbed his chin, frowning into the space Izzy had been standing in.

"What plans? Were you planning on bringing Camille around often?" Clary took a step back, feeling defensive. It wasn't as if she and the coven leader were mortal enemies, but she wasn't exactly ready to get chummy with the ice-cold vampire. At least not after Camille had succeeded in dominating Simon's time.

Magnus snapped back to reality. His yellow eyes sparkled. "Actually, I was. There's a lot to learn from Camille, you know."

Jace snorted. "If you think Isabelle overreacted, just wait until Alec hears about this."

Clary frowned. "I'm going to go see if Izzy needs anything."

"Cause you have the touch?"

"Yes, I do."

Jace and Magnus watched her leave. When the door closed, Magnus turned to Jace. "What happened to that box Amatis gave you?"

Jace looked taken back. "Stephen Herondale's box?"

"Yes, your father's. Do you still have it?"

"What are you planning, Magnus?"

Magnus shrugged. "Nothing. Can I borrow it?"

"Those are personal letters. They are also meaningless." Jace was starting to look unhappy. Maybe it was because of Clary's absence but mostly it was because of Magnus' question.

"Good. So you shouldn't mind."

Jace's eyes flared angrily. "Take it." He stood up, looking like his usual unfriendly self. "What do I care?"

X

X

X

It was early when Tessa left her apartment to visit the small coffee house on the corner of her block. It was foggy outside, but the weather never really impeded these daily rounds around Chinatown.

She stumbled on something outside her door.

A silver box, fragile, old, and wonderfully familiar sat on her front rug.

Nearly a century and a half ago she'd seen it in a London shop, hiding behind heavy and gaudy pieces. It had attracted her immediately.

She'd thought it would be something nice to give to Will.

She'd never thought she'd see it again.

Magnus truly was capable of great things.

Thank you everyone for reading! It's wonderful to see how much traffic this story is getting, and yet how very few reviews. To answer the big question, though: No, I have no idea what happened to Will and Jem. I suppose they are dead. Hopefully of old age after experiencing all the great things in life. I don't know anything more than you do. Which is why I'm making Tessa into the most elusive character possible. She'll tell them a lot about her life, but also nothing, always keeping Jem and Will at a safe distance. Do I kind of hope she is Jace's long lost great great grandmother? Of course. But who knows...she might actually be Isabelle and Alec's.


	3. Chapter 3

XXXXX ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO CASSANDRA CLARE XXXXX

There were really no words for this.

Instead, all Magnus could do was smile and offer Tessa his arm. "You won't regret this."

She already doubted those words. As she'd called a taxi and watched New York zoom by, she wondered if this was simply another of her flights of fancy to bring the past back.

Her heart would undoubtedly be crushed before the end of this.

The New York Institute, an old-gothic masterpiece who had seen better days, was a reminder of what she'd left behind in London. Then again, everything she'd seen since Magnus had come a-knocking some how reminded her of London. Even the strange children with shaved heads and colorful tights reminded her of London.

Magnus paid the driver a nice amount and smiled at his confusion. They waited for him to go around the block before he led her up the steps to the front door. She waited patiently, focused solely on the grain of the wood, for the door to open and for Magnus to lead the way. An old, loud elevator took them up higher then she would have expected.

The hallway, although deserted, had a homely feel to it. There were several pairs of high heels abandoned by the elevator door and a leather jacket with splashes of green and red pain. There was a sword, with a bent tip, leaning against a wall.

Somewhere in the distance, some one was screaming.

"Jace," Magnus explained. "In all my years, the only other person I've ever met as arrogant as he was Will."

"You suggest it might be genetic?"

"Perhaps, although my theory does not take into account the wonderful temperament of his female forbearers." He smiled fondly down at her. "This way to the library. The children will most likely be having their nightly discussions before heading out."

The library, a wonderful room filled from floor to ceiling with books, was anything but a quiet retreat. There was a beautiful, sad looking girl seated by a window with a black cat curled in lap. Three other people, a blond boy and a redheaded girl and a boy with blue eyes, stood over a chess set, arguing over the placement of the pieces.

"What part of 'no' did you not understand, Jace?" The blue-eyed was growling as he pointed at the queen. "It's a check. That's it. End of game."

"You wouldn't know a winning move if it bit on the nose, Alec. I see five million opportunities left!" The leonine Jace replied as he waved a hand as if to indicate all the unseen possibilities. "All it takes is a brilliant mind such as mine to—"

"Magnus!" the red head turned around with a smile, looking relieved to find something else to transfer their attention to.

"Are we back to discussing the latest, undiscovered brilliant mind?"

"We are back to discussing how Jace is _not_ the latest brilliant mind," Alec explained as he turned his entire attention to Magnus. Those eyes of his lit up like flash lights, so blue that they ended up being electric. "I though you were busy tonight?"

His resemblance to Will was so shocking that for a moment, all Tessa could do was stare. Magnus's gentle touch to her arm brought her back. She grinned weakly at him. "I'm alright."

"I was busy, but then I received an unexpected guest and my night suddenly cleared up," he looked back at the boy with a warm expression. "I thought I'd stop by and introduce you to an old friend."

They seemed to notice Tessa for the first time, all four of them dragging their eyes from Magnus to her. The golden boy frowned as the red head smiled. "Hello."

"Tessa Gray, these are the wonderful young people I've been telling you about," Magnus said with all the flourish of a dandy. He performed a wonderfully proper bow as he indicated each person in turn. "Alexander Lightwood. Jace Lightwood. Clarissa Morgenstern. The beautiful creature by the window is Alec and Jace's sister, Isabelle."

She met each other eyes in turn and realized that no matter how far from the present she'd been, she was familiar with those people as she was familiar with herself. It was as she swept her eyes over Isabelle that she noticed a pair of cat eyes, not Magnus', studying her with quiet precision.

"Tessa, you remember—"

"Church!"

The animal charged at her from Isabelle's lap, a ball of fur on a mission. She had just enough time to open her arms before he slammed into her chest. The warm presence in her arm, after so long, nearly brought her to tears. "Oh, darling, how have you been?"

He buried his head against her chest, rubbing side to side as he purred loudly and persistently. For all the "children" knew, Tessa Gray and Church were deeply engaged in conversation.

"Really? Well, that must have been wonderful! I did tell you that New York did wonders for your curiosity."

"I did tell him the same thing just a few days ago," Magnus chipped in.

Church purred.

Tessa giggled. "Of course not! Why would I ever?"

"Oh, that's just bollocks, Church, and well you know it," Magnus told him.

Church purred a little louder and turned his head over his tiny cat shoulders.

Tessa's eyes rose from the cat and landed on Isabelle. "Isabelle?"

The girl's eyes met hers, blue clashing against grey. Jace might have been Will's great-great-grandson, but Isabelle and Alec reminded her most of him. Jace, beautiful and golden, actually looked a lot like Jem. She looked strangely constrained and defeated. "Yes?"

"Church wants you to know that the earring you are looking for is under the refrigerator. He would have gotten it for you, but his paws can't reach. He expects you to stop mopping around now that he's found it," Tessa relayed while petting Church gently. "He's concerned that you've lost much more valuable things and didn't shed as many tears as you've recently done."

"So nice of him to show such apprehension," Isabelle muttered under her breath.

"He's also been very sensitive, my Church," Tessa commented. She glanced down at Church and at the surprised faces around her. "We've been friends for…well, a lady never reveals her age."

"Some one hundred and fifty years, maybe," Magnus stated off-handedly. "We were young and foolish."

"Magnus! Really!" Tessa snapped.

"You've been friends with Magnus for that long?" Clarissa asked surprised.

"Magnus…"Tessa began and smiled when Magnus looked down at her, "We warlocks do not have the liberty of making many friends, therefore the ones we do have, we don't easily let go of. Of course, I was young and foolish, but Magnus was already old and silly."

"You wound me."

"I like her already," Jace muttered to Clarissa. "What else can you tell us about Magnus Bane?"

"All sorts of incriminating things, I'll wager," Tessa grinned.

"But who really cares?" Magnus cut in looking a little worried. "I've brought Tessa here to show her how lovely all of you are."

The four youngsters looked surprised. "Listen here, Magnus, we've just welcomed you into our family, it's not fair that you are looking for ways to sell us just because you think my beauty can earn you some coin," Jace said wagging his finger at Magnus.

"How absolutely remarkable." Tessa was eyeing him, not without curiosity.

"I thought you'd think so," Magnus pointed out to her.

"I think you should enlighten us," Jace cut in. He no longer looked amused, but suspicious.

Church wiggled out of Tessa's arms and beckoned her to a seat next to Isabelle. "Pardon my rudeness. I only meant to state that even when you speak and the things you say sound just like something Will would say."

"Who's Will?"

Tessa looked surprised. She looked towards Magnus, but he didn't meet her eyes. "Will was my…friend. William Herondale. Your great-great-grandfather." Silence fell over the library. Church crawled onto Tessa's lap and purred. She patted his head. "Silly, I know."

"What's this about, Magnus?" Jace growled. The playfulness and the innocence was gone. He was livid. And angry, he looked a lot more like Will.

"Jace," Alec warned as he placed a hand on his friend's shoulder.

Tessa eyed that innocent show of support. "I knew Gabriel Lightwood, too."

"Supposedly, he was a jerk," Isabelle said offhandedly.

Tessa smiled sadly at her. "Gabriel and Will hated each other on a good day. They are undoubtedly turning on their graves now that their great-great-grandchildren call each other brother."

Alec's head jerked. "They hated each other?"

"Too alike to be friends."

Whereas Jace was looking taken back and resentful, Clary got closer to Tessa, sitting next to her. "What else?"

"You look a lot like your grandmother," Tessa whispered. Her hands were itching to cradle Clary's face, to hold her in her arms and rock her like she'd done for generations of Fairchilds. "Same beautiful hair."

Clary beamed. "I don't know a lot about—"

"We have to go hunting," Jace growled. He was stalking towards the door. "Let's go."

Clary's shoulders dropped. "Maybe another time, Tessa."

"Whenever you want," Tessa reassured and was surprised to hear in her own voice that she was indeed looking forward to seeing these children again. She looked towards Alec. "I always thought Lightwoods and Herondales were a perfect pair. I just wished it hadn't taken four generations. You do the Nephilim proud by having ended all those silly squabbles."

Alec blushed, a deep red color that filled his cheeks and ears. "T-thank you."

"I'm growing old here," Jace shouted.

Isabelle stood up. Tessa saw a flash of metal on her wrist and smiled to herself. "I hope I'll see you again, Isabelle."

"Of course you will. I absolutely adore developing relationships with Downworlders," Isabelle laughed ruefully. She sobered fast, her eyes serious and defeated. "It's my weakness."

She followed after Jace without another word. Clary stood up. Alec stepped aside to let her through. She waved a little to Tessa as she left the room.

"Be careful." Magnus had taken Alec's hand.

The boy was looking at him with complete focus. "You know I always am."

Their exchange ended with another fleeing look. Alec pulled his hand out of Magnus' as he nodded to Tessa. "It was nice meeting you."

"The pleasure was all mine," Tessa reassured him.

As he exited the room, Tessa looked up to Magnus. He was rocking on his heels. "You didn't tell them I was coming."

"You didn't tell them who you really are," he returned.

A perfect stale mate.

"They are lovely. Alec is lovely, Magnus." It was safe topic for both of them. No one calling out anyone else.

"Thank you. I try to tell him so every day."

"You do?"

"We like to say these little things to each other. You smell wonderful, you look beautiful today or I love you unreservedly. Couple things."

"Couple things?" Tessa's eyes went wide.

Magnus straightened. He was frowning. "Tessa darling, you do know I'm gay, don't you?"

"Don't be silly, Magnus. Of course you are gay. You are the happiest person I know!"

He looked like he was trying to fight off a smile. He sat down next to her and took her hand in his. "Not happy gay, bisexual gay."

"Oh."

"Tessa, I thought you knew. When I came to your apartment that first day you said you thought Alec was beautiful and young and I thought you had understood…"

"When I said he was beautiful and young it was because he reminded me of Will."

"Oh." They studied each other for a moment.

"Were you ever attracted to Will?"

His head jerked. His eyes were wide, like he couldn't make sense of her question. "Pardon?"

"Your Alec looks remarkably like Will. It's the hair and eyes, I think. Did you think Will was lovely too?"

"No, Tessa, I think that was entirely you and Jem." He was grinning at her.

"Huh."

"So I'm the happiest person you know, eh?" Magnus asked, changing the topic again.

"Suddenly I feel as if I've been living under a rock," she muttered to no one in particular.

"Oh, well, I suppose I'm happy gay too."

"No, mostly you are confusing."

X

X

I'm sorry it took me so long to upload. Spring break was c.r.a.z.y. I'll try harded to do one upload a week. I also apologize for any spelling mistakes.


	4. Chapter 4

XXXXX ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO CASSANDRA CLARE XXXXX

"Alexander."

"Magnus told me where I could find you." Alec hovered at the threshold of Tessa's apartment, blushing slightly, wet from the drizzle outside.

"Please come in." Tessa stepped aside. "May I take your coat?"

He shed the leather jacket he was wearing and handed it to her. "I didn't want to just pop in."

"It's fine. I was just lazying around anyway." Tessa hung up his coat on the rack and dried her hands on her skirt. "Can I get you anything?"

"No, i—I'm not sure why I'm here," Alec admitted.

The smile she bent on him was patronizing. "Of course you know why you are here. It's called curiosity. It gets to the best of us."

Alec was not amused. His jaw locked in place. "Were you and Magnus together?"

Tessa hadn't been expecting that direct of a question. She sat down, slightly shocked. "No. No. Not us."

"So you were—"

"Magnus was my teacher, Alec. He thought me how to be…me." She felt exhausted after uttering those words. Despite all the decorum she'd learned through her life, she sagged into her chair. "It was a long lesson."

Perhaps it was seeing Tessa, who for all intents and purposes looked strangely like a titan at her prime, tired, Alec took the seat across from her. "You know him well."

"As well as Magnus Bane likes to be known," Tessa pointed out. "There are others, I'm sure, you can claim greater understanding of such mind."

"Like Camille?"

Tessa sighed. It always came back to Camille. "Yes, like she."

Alec's small smile was genuine and pleased. "You don't like her."

"Am I that obvious?"

"I don't like her." He shrugged. "Isabelle hates her."

Tessa nodded. "Church said so."

Alec's head jerked. "Church?"

"During our little conversation following your departure. I hadn't known Camille was in New York and the church cat was good enough to enlighten me." She sat straight. "You've come to ask me for something, Alec."

He blushed. "If Church…"

"Clarissa's friend—Simon…is he someone Isabelle loves?"

"Yes."

They were silent. Tessa looked like she was far away.

"To fall in love with an immortal is a terrible thing," she whispered softly. "So very terrible."

Alec could feel his heart sinking and his blood turning to ice. He could hear already all the things she was going to say, all the same things Magnus had once heard from Camille.

"Do not worry, Alec. It's different for you and Magnus. He told me so," Tessa whispered as if she could read his mind.

"How you know?"

"Magnus loves you far more than he was ever loved anyone. He is willing to do for you wonderful things. You will walk hand in hand through life and until the end of your days," she guaranteed him. "Immortality will seize to exist for you."

Her voice faded, her eyes glazed with tears.

He realized then, as he looked at her profile and her quivering lower lip, that she was speaking from experience. The pieces of the puzzle shifted in, making a blurry picture Alec was certain Magnus wanted to unveil.

"Did you lose the one…you loved?" He asked quietly and regretted it. "I'm sorry, it's none of my business."

Tessa looked at him. "Oh, don't mind the self-pity. I have lost many I loved, Alexander, yet the world keeps moving. That is nature."

That is nature.

He could see how fragile that nature was. He'd discussed with Magnus the repercussions of living forever and of aging and yet he'd never thought about it from the perspective of the immortal. To see everything you adore wither and die…

"You said you knew our predecesors…"

Tessa nodded. "Yes."

"Were you curious about us?"

She grinned slightly. "Aren't you curious about them?"

"No necessarily."

"To know your past, Shadowhunter, is to understand your present and be ready for your future."

Wiser words had never been spoken.

Alec glanced at his hands, at the dark markings on his flawless white skin. The same markings as Gabriel Lightwood bore. What did he know about them? About the people who made his family what is was today?

"Would you tell us? Would you tell us all you know about them?"

She looked at him for a while. If he'd been straight and single, she would have been the type of girl that would attract him. "All the things that matter."

X

X

I'm very sorry for the delay. I've been reading City of Fallen Angels and trying to figure out how my plot will work out of it. It's not an easy task. This was a short chapter, but I've got more coming in the next few days. Enjoy.


	5. Chapter 5

XXXXX ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO CASSANDRA CLARE XXXXX

Clary grinned. Tessa was staring at the plate of fried Twinkies like it might grow legs and crawl up the walls. "Despite everything you've heard, it's not that bad," she promised as she broke one in half and stuffed it in her mouth. It wasn't the most lady-like behavior and Tessa certainly didn't support it by the subtle lift of her eyebrow.

"I usually get my food reviews from the Wednesday dining section of the New York Times," Tessa said as she picked up a Twinkie with a napkin. She moved with all the grace of someone who'd become so familiar and comfortable in their skin that Clary didn't doubt she'd lived for so long. She took a tentative bite. "Good thing I can't die. This will be going straight to my arteries."

"But it's good, right?"

"It will linger," Tessa laughed. "My breakfasts tend to be very British."

Sitting at the kitchen counter at the Institute, both girls exchanged lingering looks, measuring each other. Wondering.

"It's that where you are from?" Clary finally asked.

"Essentially. I was born in London, I grew up in New York until I moved back. I was seventeen. It was 1878. It was a strange, new world," Tessa pointed out.

"It's 2011, it's still a strange, new world," Clary mused.

"Wise words."

"Why did you move back to London?"

Tessa shrugged, the very first sign of bad posture on her part. "I was an orphan. I had no prospects. New York offered nothing and London was dream I wanted to live."

"I'm sorry about your parents," Clary mumbled.

"My dearest," Tessa began with a chuckle, "after one hundred and something years, you get over it." She sounded old and well-experienced.

"What was it like? London?"

Tessa sat back. Her hands closed around coffee cup. She had a faraway look on her face. "I remember the smell of the Thames. The water splashing against the side of the boat. It was loud and dark. There was mystery in the air, just like I imagined it would and a sense of doom. Looking back, thinking about the haze and the fog, I should have known I would have been lost."

Clary simply nodded. "It must have been scary."

"I swept off my feet, in a very bad way. I grew up in a rosy world, where fairy tales and wonderful poetry made up my understanding of humankind. London's Downworld was nothing of the such."

Clary didn't interrupt. She put her elbows on her counter and leaned in to listen closely.

"Today I watch people go into Pandemonium without understanding what it really is. I watch and I laugh to myself sometimes, Clary, because all my problems started there. At the original club in London, all those years ago. The club was pit of snakes, the most powerful downworlders of that time and the ones who catered to them. So much ignorance in one room that you'd be shocked at the things they were capable of. It's because of them that I found out what I was—am."

"You didn't know you were a warlock?"

"I was perfectly human until I arrived in London. Wonderfully boring and staid. I knew nothing of my gift, Clarissa, until I met the Dark Sisters."

"Magnus has—"

"Mentioned them?"

"Once."

Tessa huffed. "I can't imagine why. They weren't much, but they did recognize power when they saw it."

"Like you?"

Tessa nodded. "I looked no different then I look now. Yet, they knew. I want you to understand, Clarissa, that I might learned to be the right kind of warlock from Magnus, but the sisters…they showed me what I could have been."

"Evil?" Clary snorted. She pushed back and shook her head. "Why does every one think that evil people are stronger then nice people?"

"I don't mean to say I would have followed those steps, Clarissa. I wanted to be the hero, the savior, not the wicked witch that brought down the empire," Tessa clarified, "yet those you have no boundaries, who know no love or pity, they are far more capable of great things than the rest of us."

Clary seemed to stop and think. "They trained you. To be like them?"

"To be like them," Tessa agreed. "Or worse. Most likely worse. I have great potential for mass destruction."

"How did you escape them?"

"Will. Will saved me, like only he could. Quite literally, spirited me away with wonderful flourished and I could only stare at him in awe."

So…wistful.

And Clary knew exactly what she meant. She could remember that day when—

"What are you doing here?"

Jace appeared at the door way and Clary scrambled to her feet. Tessa rose quietly, steadily. "I came to speak to you," she said with determination. "Only for a minute."

"I have—"

"Clarissa, if you wouldn't mind," Tessa said and Clary hurried out without so much as meeting Jace's eyes. He tried to follow her and the door slammed shut faster than even he could move. He spun around, ready to spit fire. "You wouldn't hurt me, for I have done nothing to call upon such wrath, Nephillim."

"You are blocking—"

"Only because of this." At her full height, Tessa placed her hands together and gently pulled them apart, materializing a silver box in her hands. "Magnus took this from you thinking that it could bring me here and it has. I gave this to William Herondale a long time ago. A present between friends. He kept wonderful little trinkets in it."

Jace's jaw locked. His fists were balled and his cheeks were flushed. "That—"

"Is a great heirloom. And I'm glad you have it," she cut in. She extended it to him. "I never thought I would see it again, Jace. And it nearly brought me to tears."

"Those letters were personal."

"And I'd wager I got more from them than you ever could," she pointed out.

He took tense steps forward, grabbing the box from her hand. "That doesn't matter."

"Of course it does, Jace. You don't know anything about your father," she said sadly. "I knew nothing of my parents and look what happened to me."

"You don't look that bad off."

"Will saved me, Jace, from killing him and Gabriel and so many other Nephillim. Whole families would never exist today, and all because I didn't know what my parents had done."

He looked at her now.

Tall. With shinning brown hair and wise, sad gray eyes. She'd…lived.

Had the scars to prove it.

"Stephen Herondale was a coward."

"Yes." The answer was blunt, direct and honest. "But he loved you. Always loved you. You, more than anyone else."

Tessa saw it coming. The unreserved wrath. He lunged for her, all pent up anger and sadness. Angel child he was, yet he couldn't match her yet. He hadn't learn enough.

She took one step sideways as Jace hurled at her and raised her hand. His body flew into the air and hung from the chandelier. He struggled, trying to loosen himself, but Tessa held him there with raised brows.

She glanced down at the box, lying on the ground, its contents spilled.

There was a picture of Stephen, so young and beautiful. As she knelt on the ground to pick things up, she ran her fingertips over that face. Jace shouted insults, undoubtedly meant to hurt her, but entirely meaningless.

As she set the box on the table, Tessa held the picture a while longer. "We are all cowards, Jace. Even the strongest of us. I live my life clinging to my past and you live yours holding on to the idea some day you will defeat the memory of Valentine. What do you think will happen when we both realize that we can't accomplish those goals?"

Jace screamed.

Tessa shrugged. "We are no better than Stephen, Jace. But we are alive. So we at least have hope."

X

X  
X

Alright, people, I'm officially confused on where to go with this story. Fallen Angels has gotten me on a roller coaster I can't make sense of, soo...I'll be taking suggestions. Or directions. Please review. Please. I need to know you are still reading.


	6. Chapter 6

XXXXX ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO CASSANDRA CLARE XXXXX

"What did you do to him?"

Coming to the realization that Magnus had freely spread the location of her home, Tessa wondered if it was time to find another small apartment somewhere she couldn't be tracked.

"Ah…his pride is still wounded, I imagine?"

Isabelle stood in her living room in the same manner Magnus and Alec had, although she did look much less friendly and a lot more uncomfortable.

"You left him hanging from the chandelier! He's spent the last four days locked in his room. Clary can't get him to come out."

"Darling, we would have done worse damage to each other if I had let him stay on his feet," Tessa pointed out. "Could I get you anything? Tea?"

"Magnus warned me that's how you calm people down…with tea. I don't want to calm down. Do you understand what you've done?" She was exasperated. Fuming, even. her pale skin was alive with rushing blood.

Tessa considered the question. "Are you referring to his recent lapse with your brother?"

A pin could have dropped in the room and all of Manhattan would have heard it. Isabelle rolled her eyes. "Let me guess, you are all-seeing?"

"Come in the kitchen, Isabelle, and I'll tell you how is it that the world really works," Tessa beckoned.

The room, clean and small, already had a kettle of hot water ready on the stove and tea set laid out.

Izzy sat down in the tiny breakfast nook, her eyes the shiny table surface. "Did Magnus tell you everything?"

"When you are as…quiet?...as I am, you start to hear things, Isabelle. Things you don't want to believe but that follow you around and it scares you," Tessa told her. She reached for the kettle and poured the steaming water into a lovely tea pot. "When I saw you, all those months ago in Idris, I thought I could go back to my quiet life knowing that all of you were safe."

"Why did us being safe matter?"

"Because you are a legacy of wonderful people who never thought they'd be blessed by children or grandchildren or anyone who would carry on their names. Being a Shadowhunter does not afford many the luxury of continuance," Tessa reminded her.

"I grew up on that mantra. I know," Izzy whispered, "Shadowhunters die young. I'll die young."

"Be thankful for every moment you get." Tessa seemed to disappear into her thoughts for a second. "Don't forget that."

"Somewhere between trying to convince Jace he's not evil and fighting against every demon willing to follow Sebastian, I'll remember to be thankful for this wonderful world we live in," Izzy grumbled sarcastically.

"If Magnus and I had known sooner, about Jace's death, about lack of balance, maybe we could have changed a lot things, Isabelle, but that wasn't case and we don't cry over spilt milk." Tessa poured her tea and sat down next to her. "I only knew, really knew, when she sent her mark out."

"Lilith?"

"_The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; the __screech owl__ also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest_." Tessa sipped her tea. "It's from the King James Bible. Worse things could have been said."

"That's a monster I could have gone my entire life without seeing."

"The Downworld gives her credit to being our mother, the first of demons and the life giver to warlocks, but that creature is just foul," Tessa said gently. "But we did feel a tug to her, something essential."

"Could she call you to her?"

Tessa shrugged. "If she wanted, but she was so powerful, why would she need us?"

"Simon killed her." Izzy's tone was one of self-reassurance. "Clary saw him do it."

"The Mark of Cain killed her, not your Simon. But it is her blood in Sebastian, Isabelle, and it is the blood of a Great Demon, not to be taken lightly." Tessa stood and opened a cupboard, pulling out cookies.

"Where were you when we lost Jace to Sebastian?" Tough as nails, Isabelle was still just a girl, one who was scared by the prospect of losing another brother and who was living through a love affair with the most frightening of futures.

"I'm so sorry." Tessa handed her a chocolate covered cookie and sighed. "I'm sorry he was taken from you, I'm sorry he's not completely back, I'm sorry he's haunted by Valentine and I'm sorry I can't fix it with the snap of my fingers."

Izzy nodded, biting into a cookie without much feeling. "I don't expect you to."

"Magnus does," Tessa confessed. "In all his greatest, Magnus truly believes that if Jace knows all there is to know about William, than he'll see how sanctified he is."

"Maybe if we call him 'Angel Child' long enough, he'll realize how lucky he is." It was Izzy's turn to look Tessa up and down. "You knew him well."

"Magnus?"

"William."

Tessa's smile was enigmatic. "As friends do," she answered. "But that's not the curious part, is it? What I want to know is how Clary brought him back."

"William?" Izzy asked, playing coy.

"Jace."

"Well, she has a gift for lost souls," Izzy snorted. "Who knows how Clary and Jace work? They are _the_ star-crossed lovers. Half the time they spend with each other is all about puppies and rainbows and than it's about demons and possessed souls and self-hatred. Who knows what mood they were in when we saw Sebastian the last time? Maybe she cried a little and reminded him of what wonderful thing they had going and how she would die without him. I really can't tell."

Tessa watched Isabelle pick another cookie up and munch on it. "Your tea is getting cold."

"Don't you have something stronger?"

Tessa shook her head. "I gave up spirits in the 40's."

Izzy tossed her head back and laughed. The red neon lights from the Chinese restaurant across the street reflected in her hair. She looked beautiful, all her dark grace and firey soul. "You were an alcoholic?"

"I was fond of the stuff," Tessa divulged.

"We all have our vices," Izzy pointed out. "I date a vampire on and off."

"The reason for your tears. Church is worried, Isabelle, and the animal does not worry heedlessly."

"How do you know Church?"

"Tell me about Simon and I'll tell you about the church cat."

"Tough bargain. Do we have time?"

"I have all of eternity, my dear."

X

X

X

I'm so sorry for the delay. Now that school is over I have to work, which means you can't carry a laptop everywhere. Instead, I have to write plot lines on sticky notes. Good news, though, cause I do have the story entirely plotted out and the next two chapters done! I decided to alter the story a little. It takes place somewhere in the future when Clary somehow manages to break Sebastian's grip on Jace. It gives me a way around imagining what Ms. Clare would do with her new book. I hope you guys like it!

PS: I was reading the part about the Silent Brothers. Zachariah says he would have known…who really is Zachariah?


	7. Chapter 7

XXX ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO CASSANDRA CLAIRE XXX

Clary stopped in front of Jace's bedroom door.

It was becoming a normal occurrence…her just standing wondering if she should knock or turn tail and run. Love couldn't be this difficult for everyone else, could it?

The door opened and he looked down at her with a frown. "Come in."

She shook her head, taking one step back. "No, it's fine. I remembered I promised Luke I'd look into something for him."

"I can come with you," Jace muttered as he turned around to grab a jacket.

"There's really no need. And besides, it's in Brooklyn and you shouldn't have to leave Manhattan just to keep me company," she told him as she turned on her heels. "See you later."

His warm hand wrapped around her wrist. Clary felt like bucket of ice had been dumped on her. These unexpected touches used to fill her stomach with butterflies, but now they scared her more that anything. "Why don't you say what's on your mind?"

"If I'd known you were interested in fluorescent light bulbs and energy savings, I guess I would've said something sooner."

"What?" Jace took a step closer and her whole body tensed.

"You asked what was on my mind and I told you. Luke asked me to pick up new light bulbs for him." She extracted her arm from his grip. "I should get going."

"You sure you're not going to sneak out to see Tessa Gray?" His tone was mocking.

Clary wondered if he wanted to pick a fight with her. "Not tonight, she invited me over for breakfast tomorrow. And I'm not sneaking out to see Tessa. I'm not hiding from anyone."

Jace's jaw locked in place. "What does she say to you that you keep going back, huh? What's so damn interesting that you rather spend time with her than with me?"

"She's honest."

Silence echoed after her words.

Jace looked like he'd been struck by a baseball bat. He staggered back and Clary felt a tinge of regret yet couldn't bring herself to apologize. She shook her head, brushing her hair away from her face.

Wasn't this exactly why they were in this crappy position? Because they never told each other exactly what they were thinking? He never liked talking about Sebastian or the things that had happened when he'd left and she walked around eggshells trying to make his days just a little happier. Trying to be as supportive and loving and to prove to him that he was everything she needed and wanted.

But all the things she said wrong or did wrong resulted in snide comments or a angry look and she caught him fighting the urge to scream more often than the times he was nice to her. Truth was…Jace wasn't back.

Not the Jace she loved, at least.

"Is that what's bugging you?"

"I love you," she whispered as she took enough steps back to be out of his reach. "More than I might love myself, but don't want it, do you?"

"Don't presume to—"

"Know what's in your head? I doubt even you know it, Jace." She turned and started walking towards the elevator.

"Clary!"

"We give you all the chances. Izzy, Magnus, Alec and even Simon, they do everything for you. And you can't bring yourself to be honest with us," she shouted over her shoulder.

"Clary!"

"You know what the worse part is?" She turned back to him and for the first time since she'd met Jace, she didn't feel love for him. There was anger and there was sadness like nothing she'd ever felt. She felt…furious. Wronged. "His _my _father! Mine! I'm his child. Do you understand that? And Sebastian? That's my brother! That's my blood. NOT YOURS!"

Jace had frozen. His mouth was slightly opened and he looked green.

"You're supposed to be the angel child, Jace, but you're so busy wanting to be tortured that you don't seen to realize that you could have ended this years ago," she growled. There was no reason to pull back punches anymore. No one ever said anything to his face because they were to scared to lose him, but he was already gone, wasn't he?

"Clary…"

"If I'm not haunted, than why the hell are you?" She demanded. When he didn't answer she turned away from him. "I just want to go home." She didn't look back at him. And she cried the whole way back to Luke's.

X

"Jace?"

He looked up at the person now shielding the sun from his face. Tessa Grey, bundled in a white winter coat and burnished leather boots, stood a foot away from him. Her head was tipped down, like she was trying to get a look at his face. When he'd first seen her, he'd had the impression that she was much older than him, but now that he was looking at her again…she was just a girl.

"Did he ever hurt you?"

She shrugged. Her brown curls bounced. He noticed that she was twisting a white knit beret. A nervous habit? "Never intentionally." She shifted from one foot to the other. "May I sit?"

"It's too cold here. You'll get sick." He stood up, feeling his muscles groan in protest. He'd spent the night sitting on the park bench, watching the wind blow the leaves across the walkway.

"Are you hungry?" She asked softly. His stomach answered before he could and Tess laughed gently. "Might I treat you to lunch? My favorite restaurant is just a couple blocks away."

He nodded. Tessa turned to lead the way and his eyes strayed to the snow covered lawn. "My last happy memory with Clary was here, you know? Before I went with Sebastian."

She paused, looked back where he was looking. "I'm glad you carry that memory close to your heart, Jace. Don't ever let it go."

He wondered what order words of wisdom she had as they cut across Central Park towards the Upper West Side. He came here rarely, never to the kind of establishment that Tessa appeared to frequent.

It was an elegant bistro, bright and calm and echoing Brazilian jazz. The waitresses and the bartenders smiled when she walked through the door and they were whisked towards a table the back faster than he could blink. As they sat down, the waitress ran through the menu with lighting speed and simultaneously poured coffee into a delicate cup for Tessa.

"I'll be back in a moment," she giggled before she strutted away.

"You don't strike me as a person who drinks three hundred dollar bottles of wine and eats escargot," he muttered as he looked through the specials.

Tessa's smile beamed at him and it was so familiar that he couldn't help grinning back. "When I hit my mid-seventies, I realized that there is no harm in indulging in the little things that makes you happy."

"It took you seventy years?"

She shrugged noncommittally. "All good lessons take a while to learn."

He looked back down at the columns, fighting the urge to look at her again. he could feel her eyes on him, and it was disconcerting to realize that she hadn't yet touched her menu. "Aren't you going to order anything?"

"I've memorized the menu."

"You must have a lot of free time."

"Eternity."

His stomach sank when he realized what he'd just said. Around her, specially now when he didn't want to say the wrong thing, he felt like he was dealing with his better and she had half of her mind made up about him.

He looked at her, at her blue-gray eyes that were unreadable. "A normal person would apologize, so I guess I'm so—"

"You have this look on your face, this expression that says you can't believe what you are about to do but you'll do it anyway because you think it's right…Will made that same face all the time," she sighed. She looked away for a moment and then dragged her gaze back to him. "Of course, he never quite apologized with his words."

He opened to his mouth to say something, anything, but the waitress was back. Tessa asked to be surprised and Jace picked the first thing his eyes landed on.

"He'll like a bowl of tomato soup, too, Hannah. Please," Tessa said as the girl collected their menus.

"I like tomato soup."

"I know. It's been a weakness of Herondales for several generations now."

He saw the opening she was giving him, the chance for him to ask her whatever he wanted. Instead he opened his mouth and, "I'm sorry to attacking you."

"I'm sorry I left you hanging from a chandelier."

"I'm sorry I'm an idiot," he blurted out.

Tessa chuckled. "That, my dear, is genetic. You can't help yourself. Although, you will become a tad more refined with age."

"Did William become refined?"

"He learned to control his demons on his good days," she answered vaguely.

"Were there many?" He thought about the man he'd never met, who'd been dead for decades. Had been as lost as Jace felt? Had he not seen the light at the end of the tunnel? Had he ever really come to terms with the things that lived inside his head?

"There were vices. Alcohol, cursing, gambling, and women of poor morals. But by the time I met him, it was past he couldn't free himself from. Jem and I, we were patient, carefully, we did whatever we could."

The same demons lower class demons he'd fought before he'd met Clary. "Who was Jem? His girlfriend?"

Tessa had been sipping her coffee and his question made her cough and spill all over the red tablecloth. She laughed loudly, the first sound that came out of her that was above inside voices. He liked the way it sounded. "James Carstairs was Will's best friend and parabatai. The only person who could really get Will to do anything he wanted. Will used to tell Jem everything."

Jace watched her eyes sparkle and then grow serious. She pulled back into her thoughts, as if she was reliving a memory from the far past. "He didn't tell everything to you?"

Tessa dabbed the tablecloth with the edge of her napkin. "Not really."

The waitress appeared carrying a tray filled with their food and methodically laid out lunch. When she retreated, Jace looked back at Tessa. She was looking at her food with a frown, biting on her lower lip. "Why not?"

"I think he used to think that he could protect me best by never telling me anything. It was like pulling teeth to get Will to open up about anything. Ever." She cut her chicken with hasty, jerky movements. "It was the unintentional hurts you were asking me about."

"So if I keep things to myself, I hurt Clary too?"

"You knew that already, Jace." She swept him a look.

He shook his head. "Not really. I've been pretty self-absorbed recently."

Tessa sighed. "Talking doesn't resolve everything, either, you know. Just in case you were thinking about going home and spilling your guts."

He laughed. "Hadn't crossed my mind." She looked like she didn't believe him and he wondered how alike he was to Will that she could read him so well. "So there is no foul-proof recipe?"

"Of course, not, dearest," she said, "of course, one usually comes up with good ideas on a full stomach. Eat your soup, Jace. Your lips are still blue."

As he dug in, a cell phone sounded and Tessa dug through her purse. She pulled out his cellphone and answered it. Any other day he would have been pissed to see his property being handled like it wasn't his. But he'd been at the other end of Tessa's magic and he liked to tell himself that he knew better. "Oh, hello, Magnus…yes, I do have him….of course, he's perfectly intact…why would I lie to you?...really, Magnus, you would think you'd know me better by know…I'll return him promptly to Maryse fed and clothed…Good-bye."

She snapped his phone shut and slid his phone across the table to him.

"Is this how you found me?"

"No." Tessa kept eating even though he was looking at her, clearly waiting for her to answer him. When he didn't resume eating, she set her fork down. "Obviously, it would have been useful to cast a tracking spell by having something of your belonging, but to be quite honest, all it took was knowing that you would go somewhere you are happy."

They ate in silence, only interrupted by the clink of their utensils on the china. The waitress came and went quietly and when Tessa paid the check, Jace wondered why he didn't want the quiet he felt around her to end.

Outside, again bundled in her white coat, Tessa hailed a cab. He held the door as she slipped in and gave the directions to the Institute. He was slightly surprised when she asked the driver to drop them off several blocks before.

She didn't say anything on the ride and he couldn't figure out where to start questioning her. As they crossed the island, he kept sneaking looks at her, frowning every time he caught her looking out the window with a soft smile. Something so familiar…

"Does it hurt being around us?" She jumped at his question.

For a moment, she just stared at him. Then their cab pulled over and Tessa slipped several bills to the driver before she slipped out. Jace glanced out at the street and hurried after her except that…

Tessa was gone.

Where she'd been standing was a young man, taller than Jace, dressed in a black suit and heavy winter coat. He had to be a good six foot four in height. His black hair was cut short, but the front fell down into a pair of eyes so blue they were mesmorizing. Dark brows slashed parallel to sharp cheekbones, and his lips were stretched into a grin that Jace recognized as mischievous.

The guy meant business and was ready for trouble.

"This was William at his prime, Jace." The deep, rumbling voice sounded like thunder. Lightly accented, it sent a shiver down his spine. "Everywhere we went, women of all ages used to stare at him like they couldn't believe he was a living and breathing creature. There were days I had to leave the room to make space for his ego."

"Tessa…" Jace gulped. He couldn't believe what he was staring at. She'd been a girl one second and…

"Come on, I don't want Maryse to worry anymore than she already is," Tessa, who looked like his great-great-great grandfathered, said. "Shadowhunters die young, that was always broke my heart. Will made me promise I would remember him like this."

"Young?"

"Vibrant," Tessa answered although it was Will's face that broke into a grin for Jace. "He was vain to his last breath."

Jace placed a hand of Will's arm and stopped Tessa. "This is William Herondale?"

"Are you really surprised?" Those blue eyes started at him, stripping him down to his soul.

No, he wasn't. He could see the haunted man even though that was really Tessa under that skin. Charming, beautiful, he was nonetheless wild and a warrior, and he looked sad despite his smile.

Walking side by side, attracting looks from the people they passed by, Jace could see the resemblance. In their gait, in William's arrogant, flirtatious smile.

"Do I do that too?"

Will's laugh wasn't sweet like Tessa's. "I'm sure that before all of this happened, this was exactly what you did."

Jace wanted to laugh at that, but he couldn't make himself even grin at the thought forming in his head. "Am I really the last Herondale?"

"I doubt, Jace, that even in Will's wildest dreams, did he ever imagine he would have children or that his family name would survive this long." Will came to a halt in from of the old cathedral and for a moment, he just gazed up at the building. "We surrounded him with love, and he was still convinced he'd die alone, that fool."

"But he didn't, did he?"

"I held his hand and I've done what I could for his children and his children's children. In the end, his family was all that mattered to him." Tessa took at step back and waved Will's hand toward the front door. "You should try apologizing to Maryse for disappearing in the middle of the night. She loves you very much."

"I should apologize to all of them." He wondered how hard that was going to be after all this time. And for the hundreds of things he'd done wrong.

Will's smile was roguish. "It's not that bad if you do one at a time and you really mean what you say."

"Thank you, Tessa," Jace said as he looked at that face that had been gone for so long. He could see his father in that face and he could see himself.

"My pleasure," Will answered with an incline of his head. "Always here to help."

Jace turned and began to climb up the steps to the front door. He could already imagine Maryse standing in front of the fireplace, fuming, while Alec paced and Isabelle stormed around. he wondered if Clary would be here and where he'd start apologizing.

Where he would start explaning…

"Hey, Tessa—" He spun back around.

Tessa wasn't on the street, nor was Will. A tall man with silver hair was walking away from him whirling a silver cane but otherwise the street was empty.

Jace took a deep breath and told himself he would start small.


	8. Chapter 8

XXX ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO CASSANDRA CLARE XXX

"_Tessa? Tess."_

_ She glanced at him, one brow lifted in clear annoyance. This was her favorite part of her book. "Yes?"_

_ "You do know demon pox is contagious, don't you?" Will was grinning at her, looking rather pleased. _

_ "You drive me to the brink of insanity."_

_ "Very thin line, that one."_

_X_

_"__When Will truly wants something," said Jem, quietly, "when he feels something — he can break your heart."_

_X_

_"Will has always been the brighter burning star, the one to catch attention — but Jem is a steady flame, unwavering and honest. He could make you happy."_

_X_

_"Ah," said a voice from the doorway, "having your annual 'everyone thinks Will is a lunatic' meeting, are you?" _

X

"'_She hath no loyal knight and true, the Lady of Shalott'," Tessa read out loud. She snapped the book shut and sat back into the armchair. The chill was settled in her bones. She wondered if—_

"_It is rather sad, isn't it?"_

"_What's sad, Sophie?" She asked as she remembered the other girl in the room and looked up._

"_The Lady is always alone."_

_X_

_"I suppose it would be rather heartless to switch all of Henry's clothes with Charlotte's dresses."_

_ "Quite honestly, I don't believe he would notice it," Jem pointed out._

_ Tessa sighed. "Either way, Charlotte would and she would not be pleased."_

_ "I'm not afraid." Will puffed up his chest, looking smug. _

_ Some one cleared their throat and all three turned around. Charlotte stood at the door, dressed entirely in her Shadowhunter gear. She didn't look like sweet, gentle Charlotte. "You should be." _

_X_

_"I think it's all over. I think I should to leave," Tessa said as she looked over London. "I need to leave."_

_ "You could try, but I don't think you can," Magnus said as he smiled sadly at her. _

_X_

_Will and Gabriel met half way. Both looked like they were ready to roll up their sleeves and commence the pummeling. Tessa could feel her heart hammering against her ribs. She would have run to them and stood firm against their stupidity if Jem hadn't stopped her. _

_ "Oh God, please, just stop this," she snapped as they got even closer together. _

_ Both froze. Will's jaw ticked. "Count your blessings, Lightwood. She just saved you," he growled to Gabriel._

_ "I hope you have a horde of children just like you," Gabriel sneered back. He looked proud of himself at this goating._

_ Will nearly fainted. _

_X_

_Tessa shot Jem a look. Her nose went straight in the air as she pulled her gloves on and he came around to drape a cloak over her shoulders. "You are _not_ allowed to gloat."_

_ "I promise not to start humming the Chinese hat dance and banging on my _dagu_ in victory," he said wryly._

_ She stuck her bottom lip out. "Much obliged."_

_ Jem touched the tip of his finger to it. "If I'm not allowed to gloat, than you are not allowed to pout."_

_ "I am not pouting."_

_ "That lower lip of yours is sticking out. Then again it always has." _

_X_

_"She's crying again."_

_ "Did you apologize?"_

_ "Profusely."_

_ "Was it something you said?"_

_ "I honestly don't know."_

_X_

_"I worry about you, Tessa," Magnus said quietly as the room emptied out. They both listened to the soft voices and the padding of feet as it walked farther away from them. "I think you'll take whatever little he offers you just to be with him."_

_"Are you threatening me?" Gabriel asked. _

_ Tessa straightened. She didn't like the way he leaned against the table as he laughed at her. "Is that so hard to believe?"_

_ "It is when all of you are holding is a book."_

_ She glanced down at a leather bound copy of _Hamlet_. "Words are a fearsome weapon."_

_ Gabriel tugged on his coat sleeves. She caught a silver glint as he pulled out a stiletto and held it out to him. "Here. Do it properly," he said as he placed the weapon firmly in her hand. "And try to look menacing. Maybe growl a little."_

_X_

_"He will die, sooner rather than later at his current pace. He embraces it. It will be a relief," Magnus pointed out. _

_ "What does the inscription on Camille's necklace mean?"_

_ Magnus frowned. "Love conquers even death."_

_X_

_Will looked at Jem. His eyes were bluer than blue, his cheeks flushed. He said, "Then you have wasted your time."_

_Jem stared back at him. "God damn you," he said, and hit Will across the face, sending him spinning. He didn't lose his footing, but fetched up against the side of the carriage, his hand to his cheek. His mouth was bleeding. He looked at Jem with total astonishment._

"_Get him into the carriage," Jem said to Tessa, and turned and went back through the red door — to pay for whatever Will had taken, Tessa thought. Will was still staring after him._

"_James?" he said._

_X_

_"Here, drink this," Will said as he maneuvered her into a chair and placed a glass full of amber liquid in her hand. _

_ "What is it?"_

_ "You really rather not know."_

_ Trusting him, Tessa placed her glass at her lips and gulped. It burned all the way down, but at least her hands stopped shaking. "It's bloody awful," she chocked. She handed the glass back to him. "Pour me another."_

_ "Is this, then, how Tessa Gray becomes a degenerate?"_

_ "I have learned from the best."_

_X_

_"Care? By the Angel. You care about clothes or weapons or money. If you care about a person, you tell them you love them. You shout it from the rooftops."_

_X_

_He reached up and unlocked Tessa's hands from around his neck. He drew her gloves off, and they joined her mask and the hairpins on the stone floor of the balcony. He pulled off his own mask next and cast it aside, running his hands through his sweat-dampened hair, pushing it back from his forehead. The lower edge of the mask had left marks across his high cheekbones, like light scars, but when she reached to touch them, he gently caught at her hands and pressed them down._

"_No," he said. "Let me touch you first."_

X

"_Tess," he said, and she thought, once again, how no one but him ever called her that. "That is all I think about"._

_X_

_A sense of displacement and sadness rolled over her as she looked at the empty walls. Nothing remained of the years they'd spent here besides memories._

_ "Tessa." Magnus' hand closed over her shoulder._

_ "My God." Her body gave out. Days of stress, fatigue, sorrow and pain swept away whatever strength she had. Before she hit the ground, Magnus caught her and held tight. _

_ Her sobs filled the house. They echoed and echoed and she couldn't control herself anymore than he could soothe her. _

_Her heart hurt. Her soul was unconsolable. She wanted to be with him. "He's gone. Magnus, he's gone." _

_ He tucked her head on the curve of his neck. He didn't mind that she was staining his shirt with her tears. "I'll stay, Tessa. We'll stay together."_

X

"_Say something in Mandarin," said Tessa, with a smile._

_Jem said something that sounded like a lot of breathy vowels and consonants run together, his voice rising and falling melodically: "Ni hen piao liang."_

"_What did you say?" Tessa was curious._

"_I said your hair is coming undone — here," he said, and reached out and tucked an escaping curl back behind her ear. Tessa felt the blood spill hot up into her face, and was glad for the dimness of the carriage. "You have to be careful with it," he said, taking his hand back, slowly, his fingers lingering against her cheek._

_X_

_"How am I supposed to tell you how much I love you, when I am scared to death you will leave me when you realize I won't live forever?"_

_X_

_"Kill it! Kill it!" Tessa screamed at Will as the clockwork staggered towards her._

_"You kill it!"_

_"Will, if I had a sword I wouldn't be asking," she shouted as she climbed atop a crate and yanked the hem of her dress out of the clockwork's hand._

_X_

_She loved this man. His eyes. His smile. His idiosyncrasies and oddities. His temperament._

_ She loved that when he was with her, he didn't look so haunted. _

_ Tessa ran her hands over his cheek, smiling ruefully at the crow's feet at his temple. "What am I going to do when you are gone?"_

_X_

_"Jem comes first. His madness a close second."_

_X_

_She would love him forever. Not with the hero worship of a girl, but with the eyes of a woman who knew a good man. _

_X_

_"There's almost nothing I wouldn't give to see him again," he muttered as he crossed his arms behind his head and stared at the ceiling. He glanced at Tessa and nearly fell out of bed as he got tangled up in the sheets in an attempt to get to his feet. "What—"_

_ "You said you wanted to see him—"_

_ "Not in my bed and not in your nightgown either!"_

_"Be more specific next time."_

_X_

_"Marry me. Marry me because I'm selfish and I want you to be mine forever. Marry me because I don't know if I'll survive the rest of my life without having you by my side every day. Please say yes."_

X

Tessa woke with a start.

She was in New York. In Chinatown. In her bed.

Alone.

The other side of the bed wasn't rumpled and the sheets didn't smell of anything other than perfume and fabric softener.

The lights from outside filtered through her curtains, the red washing over her white sheets. Everything around her was always white, the color of ghosts. There were no silvers or blues, just white.

The sob tore through her throat before she could stop herself. The tears rolled freely as she pushed the covers off and nearly ran into her closet.

His favorite robe hung in a peg next to hers. She pulled it one with a cry and buried herself in the past.

_X_

_X_

_X_

This short chapter was as fun to read as it was to write. I've been waiting to do something like this. Please note that some of the memories were created by me and some were plucked straight from Cassie Clare's Twitter teasers for Clockwork Prince. Can you guess which ones? I purposefully didn't add names to some of them. I'm Team Jem/Will. They are both perfect. Please review. Please. I've been working really hard on this story and I would love to know you what you think. Lilianneherondale, your review made my day! All your reviews make my day!


	9. Chapter 9

XXX ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO CASSANDRA CLARE XXX

"She's not listening to you," Clary whispered to Isabelle as she glanced at Tessa.

They were curled in armchairs in Luke's bookstore, sipping on coffee and entertaining themselves with whatever they could find.

"I'm sorry, Isabelle," Tessa said as she smiled breezily. "You were saying?"

Izzy looked at her. Tessa looked pale, with dark circles under her bright eyes. She'd been quiet the entire drive and hadn't contributed much to the conversation since they'd arrived and her gaze was empty and sad. "That you are a miracle worker."

"How do you figure?"

"Jace came home several days ago and he just held my mom in a hug for about thirty minutes. My mother isn't the maternal type and Jace isn't really a hugger. He just started babbling about being an ass and an ingrate and that he'd be better from now on. I think she thinks he's possessed."

Clary's face fell. She bit her lip and Tessa wondered if the tears were going to start flowing soon.

"Has he apologized to you?" Tessa asked the tiny red head.

Clary just shook her head.

Tessa reached over, took Clary's clenched fist in her hands and brushed her lips across Clary's knuckles. "Give him time. He's working his way up to you. The hardest apologies are the ones that mean the most to you."

"It's not that he hasn't apologized to me," Clary squeaked out. "It's that he's the one that deserves an apology. I said horrible things to him."

Izzy sat back. "I'd still just let him sweat it. Just in case."

When Clary looked to Tessa, all she got was a sigh. "Consider it even."

"That's all you have to—" She stopped mid-sentence and dug into her pocket for her phone. "It's Jace."

"Answer it," Tessa chuckled as Clary jumped to her feet and disappeared outside.

"I knew he couldn't hold out my longer," Izzy humphed.

"And she couldn't hold a grudge against him if she tried," Tessa pointed out.

"Have you ever tried? It's hard." Izzy spoke from experience, although there was some bitterness in her tone. "Of course, when I do something wrong, he can't let it go til he's gloated about it for at least a month."

The bell at door rang and Clary came back in looking flushed. It was hard to tell if it was due to the cold wind or whatever Jace had said. "He asked to see me."

"And you are going, correct?" Tessa asked.

"I…yes."

"Oh, go on, then. Leave us single gals here by ourselves. We don't mind," Izzy mumbled as she threw Clary her coat and waved her away. "I'm going to start reading romance novels. The ones with Fabio on the cover. He's never disappointed a woman before."

"See ya," Clary gasped as she ran back out the door.

"I suppose I could treat you to lunch and you can tell me how your week has been?" Tessa asked turning towards Isabelle. "Who is Fabio?"

"Today, he's a pirate," Izzy giggled. "Let me pay Luke."

Tessa pulled on her coat as Izzy dropped ten dollars by the cash register. Luke, who could be heard but not seen in the back room, shouted out, "Bye girls!".

Out in the cold, Tessa tightened her scarf and watched as with a flourish, Izzy tied her coat. "Where are we going?"

"What's that place with the lower class jinn who bartends?"

Izzy frowned. "I think they closed it two months ago."

"Oh. Did some one kill someone?"

"You could say that. They started selling human meat."

"The Clave does frown at that," Tessa muttered. "The diner by Magnus'?"

Izzy nodded. They walked in step with each other, watching the people who passed them by. They were stared at, Izzy couldn't tell if it was because of how she looked or the way Tessa carried herself.

"Is something bothering you?" Izzy asked quietly after a few minutes.

"I should be asking you that question. I'm not the one buying romance novels."

Izzy just shrugged. "They can't leave you."

"Has Simon left then?" It was with great surprise that Tessa watched Izzy link arms with her and leaned her head against her shoulder.

"Not yet."

Tessa's heart ached for Isabelle. "I'm sorry."

"He has a foot out the door at all times, Tess," Izzy whispered and Tessa tensed. "It's like he's waiting for that opportune moment when my heart is the most breakable for him to leave."

Tessa tightened her grip on Isabelle's arm. "Your Simon doesn't strike me as the kind of man who would intentionally hurt you."

"He's not a man, he's a boy. A vampire boy. An immortal."

There was nothing she could say to that. Nothing that would make Izzy feel better. "I was in love with a boy with a death wish and one with a deadly sickness."

Isabelle froze and Tessa nearly fell forward. "By the Angel."

"I can imagine what Simon is thinking, Isabelle. The dread that every immortal feels when they realize that the person they love unconditionally won't age and pass and we can't follow them like nature intended. I watched the love of my age gracefully, mature, and develop new interests. I watched him stare at his image for hours when he realized he had lines on his face. The first time he had back aches from sleeping wrong, he whined for days."

Tessa let the words spill from her lips, her heart already weeping. "I am blessed in a way Simon isn't. I can change my appearance and I did. I matched every gray hair and laugh line and liver spot I could, just so we could look at each other and tell ourselves we were together to the end. But in the end, Izzy, I was still young and he was dead."

They stood in the middle of the sidewalk, in the blistering cold. Their breaths made clouds in front of their faces. "Camille handles it by surrounding herself with other immortals. Her human pets will live only as long as she lets them. Magnus loves them and leaves them, your brother being an exception for being the love of his life. I can't help myself, I have their things in my apartment. Things that they loved or that still smell like them. I can't let go of them. Sometimes I want to and some times I don't."

"So what do you do?" Izzy croaked.

"You pray. That if you ever do die, you actually go to Heaven and you will see them again the after life. It's the only thing you can do. Life is not fair, Isabelle."

X

"I—I—I…" Jace took a deep breath.

Clary watched as he paced.

It astounded her how different he already looked after his conversation with Tessa. He looked…healthier. Like he was actually eating and sleeping. Like he knew all the evils in the world weren't his fault.

"I love you." The words were carefully pronounced, enunciated down to each letter. He left no room for mistake or doubt.

Clary looked at those leonine eyes. At the brightest and the youth that she had never seen in Jace before. She'd thought he was beautiful before, but now…

"Clary? I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please—"

She threw her arms around him. Held him as close as she could. As tight as she could. She pressed her face to his chest, listening to his heart beat and made a silent vow never to let go of him.

Never again.

"Don't stop saving me," he begged. "I've already lost it all."

He kept tightening his grip on her, like she was going to slip through his fingers. She couldn't think of enough words, or the right words, to him that she'd been more wrong than he'd been. That she was willing and ready to spend the rest of his life with her.

"I'm going to make it better, Clary. Tessa's going to help me. She's going to tell me about my family. I'm going to know my family, Clary. I'll forget all about Valentine. I promise you."

She didn't want to cry in front of him, at the desperation in his voice. His childhood, under Valentine, still held memories that Jace cherished. Memories than in ways defined the man she loved.

"I love you," she whispered, when she couldn't think of any other words that would sooth his hurt.

X

X

X

I'm so sorry it took this long. My computer died. Completely. I lost all my files, including this story and a brand new I was writing for Rose Weasley and Scorpius Malfoy I had to copy and paste all the previous chapter from website. It's horrible. I waited this long hoping the Geek squad people would be able to bring my stories back but they didn't. Please review. I'd really appreciate it.


	10. Chapter 10

XXX ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO CASSANDRA CLARE XXX

"You never look me in the eye," Jace muttered.

Tessa laughed. "Of course I do. Just not often."

"Why?"

"I don't know," she answered honestly. "You have beautiful eyes, Jace. Your mother's eyes, the color of sunshine."

He sank into the armchair he occupied, his expression guarded. "Did you know her?"

"We met once. She was child. Beautiful, wild hair. She'd been crying because of a lost toy."

Tessa watched Jace play with the fringe on one of her pillows. "And after she married my father?"

"By then, Stephen was against all Downworlders and Valentine's leash was tight and unforgiving."

"I'm sorry, Tess."

She had a sneaking feeling it bothered him more than it bothered her. "Don't think about it."

"Can you tell me more about him?" Jace cleared his throat. "What was it like?"

"Difficult," she answered without a second thought. "It was an uphill battle to do pretty much anything. He prided himself in being obstinate and horribly socially inept. You never knew what you were going to get from William on any given day. Part of his charm."

"Jesus…"

"He was seventeen when I met him, a ward of the London Enclave. Charlotte and Henry Branwell ran the place back then. On a good day, we were as quiet as an asylum and on a bad day, we couldn't be trusted with spoons or shoelaces. Bunch of savages we were."

"You lived there?"

"Through my discovery, yes. Charlotte thought she could protect me best were I to remain in the Institute under her guardianship. I think we only succeed in giving her early gray hairs. Will could drive Charlotte to perdition, if he wanted. He was in a habit of dragging entrails through the house and disappearing at the worse moments. Not to mention his fights with Gabriel and Gideon."

"Was it really that bad?"

"It all started over a girl, you know," Tessa chuckled. "I suppose every war starts over a woman. Will charmed the Lightwood Treasure and Gideon never forgave him for it."

Jace blushed, ducking his head. Tessa had a sneaking suspicion he'd done something of the kind once.

"Ah, and when Charlotte placed my education on Gabriel's shoulders, William never popped," Tessa laughed. "Goodness, he babbled on and on about mauve."

"Your education?" He watched with wide eyes as Tessa touched her throat and a looped necklace shimmered into his view. It was flat chain, expensive looking and…sharp. "Like Izzy's whip," he mused.

"Just like it," Tessa agreed. "Gabriel's idea. Will would have liked me to drag around a broadsword or maybe a harpoon. He was rather fond of those."

"Was he jealous of Gabriel?"

Tessa thought back. The look on Will's eyes. The set of his mouth when Gabriel had walked into the room. "Jealous…or seriously annoyed that his skill hadn't been required. Like I said, his ego…"

"Are you any good? With the whip?"

"Some day I'll show you," she promised him. "I did leave Will with a rather awkward welt once."

"You weren't really friends, were you?" Jace shifted in his seat. "You and Will, I mean. You talk about him like—"

"Have you ever heard of Madame Julie de Lespinasse?"

"No."

"A rather wise woman. She's most prominently quoted saying 'You know that when I hate you, it is because I love you to a point of passion that unhinges my soul'. Will was indifferent to Charlotte and Henry, tortured Jessamine with a passion one solely reserves for the bane of one's existence, and he was devoted, blindly so, to James Carstairs. They were parabatai."

"You've mentioned him before." He didn't point out that she side-stepped his question.

"It's difficult to talk about Will and not bring Jem up. Sometimes, in my mind, they were one and the same, no matter how different. Jem was to Will what Alec is to you."

"My better half?" Will joked half-heartedly.

"His consciousness." Tessa tapped the tip of her finger to the table and produced two steaming cups of chamomile tea. "Will was the only thing that could drive Jem to madness and Jem was the only thing that kept Will from jumping off the London Bridge."

"When Will loved something, Jace, you could feel like it like it was crawling under your skin. This wonderful glow, hot as the sun. And he loved Jem, truly loved him. He'd lay down his life in a heartbeat for Jem. I supposed parabatai are like that, but I think Will wanted to preserve the innocence and goodness that was inherent to James."

Tessa looked up at those yellow eyes. They were burning to ask her a question she wasn't sure she could answer. "Did he love you too?"

"We loved each other. I loved them both. I made a mess of their relationship."

Her admission hung in the air. Jace looked properly shocked. His eyes, so wide, made Tessa smile despite the gravity of her words. "What—"

"They had their worse fights after I went to London. Suddenly every word was landed with extra meaning and their sensibilities were bruised and-" why tell Jace this? "I give thanks they saw the light in the end. Will needed Jem and Jem needed Will. I just…got in their way."

"What about you?"

"Huh?"

"I'm here. Will had children, right? What about you?"

Tessa leaned forward, surprised when Jace reached out and grabbed her hand. He held it gently, studying her fingers and the small scars that made her who she was. "We warlocks, heartless and soulless creatures of evil that we are, cannot reproduce, Jace. You know that, don't you? If anything, Jace, it's been a great joy watching the generations pass me by. William would have loved you."

"I don't think you are heartless, much less soulless," Jace muttered.

Tessa found herself standing and pulling him to his feet too. She waited to for him to realize what she was about to do and when Jace didn't move away, she quietly stepped closer and closed her arms around him.

He was slightly shorter than Will had been at the age, but he still fit perfectly in her arms just like Will had. She clung to him, remembering another child, a scraped knee and promises of trips to the park. Those times were long gone and best forgotten. Instead, she willed all her love into Jace. Willing him all her well wishes and all the happiness in the world.

"I wish I had been there, Jace. I wish I had been able to keep all this from your shoulders. One look at you and I would have know."

He pulled away from her, his eyes wide. "You're not the first who's said that to me. I don't mind. Don't think about it." This time, he was the one who hugged her, tigher than she expected.

"I love you, Jace Lightwood."

X

X

X

To my awesome readers, thanks for the reviews! I get so excited when I read them! To Rosebudlilac, I imagine that after a century and a half, Tessa can do whatever she wants :), afterall, she did have the almighty High Warlock of Brooklyn as a teacher. Who does she end with? Gabriel Lightwood? Jk. I don't know. I think Brother Zachariah is Jem, which would let Tessa and Will live a long life together. Panic at the Disco Fan, check out Cassie's spoiler blog. There's some great stuff there. My dear old friend Icyfirelove3, I'm thinking Simon will want to meet Tessa soon. Afterall, they'll age together for eternity, right? Can you see the dynamic trio walking into the sunset? Magnus, Tessa, and Simon? it's all really sad actually.

Please review. I can't wait to hear from you guys!


	11. Chapter 11

XXX ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO CASSANDRA CLARE XXX

"Tessa! Tessa, open this door!" Magnus took a step back, his blood pounding in his ears. "Tessa!"

The door blew out of its hinges at a wave of his hand and a shrieked echoed into Tessa's apartment.

"You scream like a girl, Magnus, and that's saying something," Tessa drawled.

Magnus narrowed his eyes at the large body sprawled across Tessa's couch, so large that his feet hung over the edge. "Of all the bodies you could pick, this was the one you chose?"

It had been a century since Magnus had seen Gabriel Lightwood and still the man looked as beautifully untouchable as he had all those years ago. The way Tessa remembered him wasn't the same as Magnus did, but the effect was not diminished. In her eyes, he was a grown man, past his scrawny days and entirely comfortable in the sheer size of his body.

His long lashes were black crescents smudged over his golden cheeks. His brows, the planes of his face, looked oddly relaxed; his lips, long, thin, so often set in a lopsided smirk, were gently curved… When Magnus caught sight of the robe Tessa was wearing, one that had been Gabriel's, he blushed.

"You could at least have put some clothes on him," he grumbled.

"I woke up with an aversion to clothes," she muttered as she set up. Gabriel's feet were huge as they touched the ground and Tessa stretched that large body. "Of course, I do feel rather perverted walking around in his semi-naked body. Mind you, males bodies are rather awkward, I don't think I enjoy walking around in them very much."

"You shouldn't!" Magnus said as he waved at Gabriel's hairy legs. "Put pants on!"

Tessa laughed. "Sorry." She disappeared into her bedroom and when she came back, Gabriel at least had pants on. "I woke up nostalgic."

"For Gabriel Lightwood?" He snorted. "I could think of hundreds of other people I'd rather see."

"I like Gabriel, you know," she pointed out. "I like the sound of his voice. How he frowned at Will and how flushed he got when he was angry. I miss him, too."

"Green eyed monster," Magnus snorted as he took a seat across from Tessa. He didn't want to look, refused to, but she chuckled and that sound was enough to drag his eyes back to her. "By ghoul's blood and chicken bones…"

"Fascinating?"

Magnus leaned forward. Those green eyes, like peridots, were nothing like Alec's. The brown hair, so carefully brushed and that goatee so primly kept… "Phss, I like my Lightwood better."

"I would have put on actual clothes, but I have nothing that fits them properly and wouldn't want these shoulders stretching my cashmere sweaters," Tessa laughed and as the sound escaped Gabriel's lips, her face changed, the angles easing into her sweet, beautiful face that Magnus loved and trusted so much. "You look rather dapper today."

Magnus looked at his clothes, lacking his typical neon and bursting stars. "I thought you were in mortal danger!"

"I asked you to lunch…" Now she looked like a child in an adult's robe. She held red embroidered lapels closed as she tucked her feet under her. Her hair fell in waves down her shoulders and Magnus almost wept as he remembered another woman who'd looked just as eternally youthful so many years person. "What?"

"Nothing." He sat back and crossed his legs. "It's been years since I've said this to you, Tessa dear, but you are capable of wonderful things."

"To what do you refer, oh great one?" She asked coyly with a grin. She batted her eyelashes at Magnus, but he was entirely unmoved.

"Jace. He actually laughed yesterday. Not his arrogant laugh, but his I'm-happy laugh," Magnus began. "Alec couldn't have been more surprised if a naked gorilla stormed by in a pink thong."

She stared at him. Those serious eyes closed and Tessa stretched out on her couch, hands tucked under her cheek like a child who needed comfort. "He has a wonderful laugh, doesn't he? Like a child's."

"I wouldn't necessarily describe it as a child's, but it is beautiful," Magnus agreed. "But you are sad, my dear. So horribly sad."

"He looks to Will like he could see himself, this shadow of what he was, could be and would be."

"You've been spending a lot of your time thinking about this, Tessa." Magnus stood only to sit beside her and wrap his arms around her. "Wasn't it peaceful for you, dear?"

"No," she whispered honestly, "not in the end."

"Why?"

Tessa's eyes opened. They were filled with tears. "I don't know."

Magnus watched the fat tears roll down her cheek one at a time. "You don't have to fix the world, Tessa, in order to feel relief."

"The idealist in me disagrees with your statement—"

"But you'll have to wait to tell us your views," Alec cut in from the broken doorway. "What happened here?"

"Magnus sneezed," Tessa explained as she hurriedly dried her tears on Gabriel's sleeve.

"What are you doing here?" Magnus asked.

"I've been looking for you everywhere. Why won't you answer your phone?"

The edge to Alec's voice had Magnus standing up. "What happened?"

"Sebastian was seeing in Borneo. He ransacked a villa," Alec took a breath, "in Borneo."

Tessa had stood too, eyes narrowed. "What does that mean?"

He turned, looking sheepish and worried. "I hid something in a villa in Borneo."

"What was Sebastian looking for, if I might ask?"

Magnus felt Tessa's scrutinizing gaze and Alec's frown. "Alec, thank you for coming to find me. I need to talk to Tessa. I don't think I'll be home tonight."

Alec's eyes narrowed at him, but something passed between him and Magnus. He looked very grown up at that moment, those blue eyes dark as he nodded and backed out of the apartment.

Magnus looked back at Tessa. She was standing stalk still, eyes blazing. All the sadness was replaced by worry and anger now that Sebastian once again threatened her precious Jace.

"What is so precious, Magnus, that you would hide it so close to your birthplace?" She asked softly. He knew that look, of a lioness studying the threat, deciding if it needed to be beheaded or just devoured.

"When we met in Alicante that last time, I had just come into the possession of something very powerful," he began.

"How powerful?"

Magnus set his jaw. "It's the Book, Tessa. I recovered the Book."

He wasn't sure what happened in the moments after.

He knew Tessa had a temper, that kind that made Hell look like a friendly place. He'd expected something to explode, for vicious accusations to be thrown at him.

Somewhere deep down he expected her to leave him.

Instead, Tessa sat down.

Her hands shook like leaves in the wind. Her already pale skin turned white.

She looked soul-dead. "Do you think…"

"We have to go, Tessa," he said softly. "He might not have been strong enough to break the wards. He might not have taken it."

"And if he did, Magnus?"

Magnus saw the past, Mortimer and Will and Nate. He saw Jem and the sadness. Tessa and the destruction. He thought about all their dead and the haunted souls that had survived.

"You'll fight for the children, won't you? Spare them?"

"And what? Kill Sebastian?"

Magnus met her eyes. "We should have killed Valentine when we had the chance."

X

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Hey everyone!

Thank you so much for your reviews. I loved them! I'm so glad people actually cry when they read this story. I'll try to keep updating, hopefully something before the end of next week, since I'm going to BRAZIL! Only for a week, just vacationing...I would love to finish this story before CP or CoLS comes out. I don't want my plot line ruined :) Wouldn't it be awesome it I could get one hundred reviews by the end, too? Please? Lots of love,

the Chair

PS: My cat, a Siamese, turned seven yesterday. His name is Chairman Meow. And he's older than Cassie's Chairman. He's currently staring at the wall, I think he does it on purpose just to freak my roommates out.


	12. Chapter 12

XXX ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO CASSANDRA CLARE XXX

Simon had expected Tessa Grey to resemble Camille.

Cold, calculating. Beautiful and yet horrible at the same time.

She was, in fact, rather wonderful to look at, with her saddened smile and those grey eyes. Not that at the moment she looked particularly huggable, considering she was wading through demon blood while staring blankly at the air around them.

"Wonderful hiding place you've got here, Magnus. Middle of nowhere, perfect place to have a meeting with a powerful warlock," Simon muttered under his breath. He pushed his hair away from his forehead. Vampires didn't sweat, but Borneo was humid enough to make his hair stick to his cold skin. "Lovely."

"Your sarcasm is duly noted and not appreciated at all," Magnus grumbled as Tessa halted and let out a deep sigh. Magnus' shoulders fell, one hand rising to rub against his eyes and jaw. He looked tired. "I'm sorry, Tessa."

She didn't reply. Simon was almost certain she was going to start crying.

Magnus turned away from her, head down.

Simon felt like there was something horrible between them…something like doubt.

She hadn't said much since they'd met. When Magnus had drawn a Portal, she had stood back with her head bent, her hands shaking slightly. Magnus had introduced them, tried to make small talk yet Tessa hadn't been up for it.

When the Portal had opened outside the stone gates of a village in Borneo, Tessa had instantly stepped ahead of them, narrowed eyes glued on the demon blood spilled on the polished wood floors of Magnus' house. While Magnus had drawn illegible signs in the air, Tessa had taken deep breaths. When Magnus had declared that "It was gone", Tessa had leaned against a wall and shook her head.

"If you wouldn't mind, I would like to know why you dragged me from Brooklyn to Borneo?" Simon said after a while, uncomfortable with the silence between them.

"I needed to speak to you," came the soft reply from Tessa. Soft, singing voice.

"I'm not sure what we could talk about," he muttered in reply as he swatted at a fly.

"What do you smell, Simon?"

He frowned. "You are joking."

She probably didn't joke often, he realized, when Tessa simply stood there. Magnus had moved closer to Tessa, staring blankly at the empty space around them. For a second, she looked just like he did, lost. Simon wondered what they saw.

He did as he was told, taking a deep breath. Acid, sulfur, madness…Sebastian. "This explains what I'm doing here…"

"We agree that he'd come after you, Daywalker, since he failed the last time," Magnus said as he snapped out of his trance. "Do you get him in the air?"

Simon nodded, not liking Magnus' tone. "He was here, alright. With a bunch of his pals. It smells rotten."

"If he's managed to tap into the power of other demons, it explains how he managed to break the wards," Tessa clarified. "It's worse than we thought, Magnus."

"What's that even mean?" Simon asked her. "How bad? Apocalypse or Star Wars II bad?"

Magnus rolled his eyes. "End of humans, bad."

"He left so much power hanging in the air. Spells. It's so strange."

"What is he trying?"

"What makes you think he's trying something? Really? What are we doing here?"

Magnus sighed. "So many questions. Sebastian broke into this house, stole the White Book, the most powerful warlock relic known to our kind, and now he's loose in the world. We can't hurt him, with out the book we don't know how to break the bonds between him and Jace, and now that he's tapping into the energy of demons—"

"How bad is this? Apocalypse or Star Wars II bad?"

"The demise of the human race and the Nephillim as we know it," Tessa told him.

"What are you two going to do?"

Tessa and Magnus looked at each other. "Another Grand Tour?"

"Oh, of course, Magnus, because the last one ended so well," Tessa drawled.

Simon stared between them. Obviously they faced the end of the world together before and they'd just have to forgive him for not being half as calm as they appeared.

"There's gotta be some kind of glitter in the back of Magnus's closet that can fix this. Turn Sebastian into a fairy or something. Or a bedazzled troll doll."

"There was a time once, when Magnus did not wear glitter at all, did you know that?"

"In the Stone Age."

"In the Victorian Era, although mind you, the man was rather fond of brocade for some ungodly reason," she said.

Simon would have responded in kind if he hadn't noticed the worried look in her face. "You do have a plan, correct?"

"Protect the children," Tessa said softly.

"Children? You have kids?" Simon asked. She didn't look old enough to be in college.

"She means Jace, Isabelle, Clary and Alec," Magnus said quietly. He turned back to Tessa. "I am not strong enough to fight him."

"No, but he is." Those grey eyes focused on Simon. "He bares the first mark. The protection of the most ancient power. He can protect them like neither of us can."

Simon could barely see straight as their words flew over his head.

Ancient power.

First mark.

Who had seen this coming?

"He's a boy, Tessa."

"And a long time ago, I was just a girl."

Simon wasn't sure if it was the silence that was deafening or it is the meaning of those words that made his ears ring. There was electricity in the air, almost palpable to him.

It came from Tessa.

She stopped with her arms down by her side, shaking. "If you weren't prepared to sacrifice something, Magnus, than you shouldn't have come here in the first place."

This is what the end is going to look like, Simon thought to himself as he watched Magnus straighten to his full height. He didn't look like a punk rocker who threw magical parties, but more like the kind of wizard that socialized with the Devil daily.

He was so caught up in watching the two stare each other down that it took a moment for Simon to make sense of Tessa's words. "You want to sacrifice me?"

Those unemotional gray eyes turned towards him. "No one is sacrificing you. You wear the Mark of Cain. You can't die."

"Tessa," Magnus warned.

Simon decided he no longer liked her that much.

"Does he not love them, too? Does he not understand that thousands of years of war and suffering and hellish loss will be for nothing if we do not end Sebastian? Does he want Isabelle to die?"

There was a surge in his blood. A boiling rage that exploded like nothing else had since he'd been reborn.

It was all meant for Tessa.

She was the one who didn't believe in his love. She said Isabelle's name wrong.

He might have hated her at that moment.

Before any one knew what was happening he launched himself at her. The impact of their bodies sounded like thunder clashing. His fangs snapped at her, reaching for the expense of white skin that covered her long neck.

"No, vampire!" She growled and he felt, with so much surprise, as one of her hands closed around his neck and she squeezed. His jaw locked up as she held him tighter with some godly strength he hadn't expected of her. His eyes lost focus, as if he were dying again.

But he couldn't die. He could just stand in suspension as Tessa rolled him under her and leaned in close. "There are mysteries behind the marks that very few understand. You can't kill me. You attacked me first and I mean you no harm, Simon. All I ask if that you protect mine as they have protected you. I will not lose the only thing I have left."

Those made perfect sense to his dead brain. He could feel her desperation under her skin, the hurt, the anger…he could see death in her eyes. For some reason, she looked like Lilith, some how gowned in stars, come for him.

Except that Lilith wouldn't shed tears over him.

"Let me up, I don't want to eat you anymore," he groaned, looking everywhere but at her.

Tessa didn't budge.

"Tess? Tessa?" Magnus appeared over her shoulder, one hand touching her arm. "Sweetheart? You can let him go. Very slowly, Tessa. You don't want to hurt him."

Her free hand gripped his jaw and turned his face towards hers. She would have looked harmless again if it weren't for the blatant way in which she physically manipulated him. "I have lost it all. It destroys your soul. You forget what it is like to feel anything aside from despair. It doesn't matter how nice you were before, how gentle you were. It doesn't matter that you had dreams and hopes. Not a day goes by that you feel like killing anything happy around you. Happy things don't remind you of what you had, they just remind you of what you lost. Don't tell Sebastian do the same to you."

Behind her, Magnus' eyes closed and Simon thought that maybe he was crying too.

How long had they been alive together? How long had they been the only constant in each other's lives? How long would he be a part of theirs?

Long after Izzy and Clary were both gone.

"What's our plan?"

X

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I'm a horrible person. Yes, I know. I've been consumed by guilt over this writer's block, but now I'm healed. If you are still out there reading, thank you. I promise to be better from now on.


	13. Chapter 13

XXX ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO CASSANDRA CLARE XXX

Magnus hadn't been by in a week.

It suited Tessa just fine; she found that solitude let her stop and think.

She'd lost her control like she'd only done a couple of times before, so horrible the feeling that she'd forgotten that poor Simon knew nothing of this bleak world of hers. He hadn't been prepared to see what was inside of her.

Despite the irking feeling of guilt over her poor treatment of Simon, there were other things that bothered her more. Things that couldn't be fixed with a good cup of tea or a pleasant afternoon reading Byron.

Magnus had acquired the Book of the White and not told her.

They had been distant from each other recently, but as warlocks, they often went decades without seeing each other. She could understand his hesitance to tell her about the Lightwood children or Jace and Clarissa, but not this. Not after they had both seen the power behind the Book.

Sebastian would have to learn far more than what Valentine had instructed him in if he hoped in anyway to use the book. There were things in there that not even Shadowhunters should have known, things _she _should not have known.

There were few who could teach him what he wanted to know, few who'd dare once they caught wind that she and Magnus were after him. It narrowed the list considerably.

Still, she'd have her work cut out for her.

"What would you do?" She muttered to the frame by her bedside table. Charlotte Branwell looked back at her with a wide smile and a baby boy in her arms. She cradled him like a treasure so mysterious and holy that it made a longing in Tessa's chest blossom. "No, don't tell. You'd have this all figured out by now. We'd be safely in our beds by midnight."

Charlotte, nothing but an old cherished pictured, simply smiled back.

"I'm not like you, Charlotte. Instead of growing wise and patient with age I find I'm more bloodthirsty and wrathful as each day passes," Tessa sighed, "you wouldn't even recognize me anymore."

She groaned. "I nearly died because I nearly killed a Son of Cain. How's that for your wonderful job raising me? I bet you even Will would have been shocked speechless.

"There is one obvious route, of course. Magnus and I have to go hunting, Charlotte. The Angel only knows where we will have to go to find a warlock powerful enough to satisfy Sebastian's curiosity, but undoubtedly he'll be powerful enough to cause me a headache."

She stood from her bed, gathering her book and putting it back in the shelf. She stepped into her closet, glancing at the rows of clothes, shoes, and glass displays of family heirlooms. On the highest shelves, where she chose not to look often, were several old boxes with the things she cherished the most. They were heavy as she pulled them down one by one, setting them around the floor in her room.

There was a wonderful dress in the first box. One Charlotte had made for her in a soft grey color that made her eyes blue. She hadn't tried it on in years. As she gathered it up in her arms, she looked around her room, imagining the walls of her room in the Institute. She remembered her bed and the fire in the hearth.

The glamour was so strong that she could smell the power exiting her pores and covering her apartment in the scent of the Institute nearly one hundred and fifty years before. She shed her clothes, pulling on a chemise and crinoline. Her fingers were clumsy on the laces and the stays. She had gotten so used to dressing herself with modern clothes that she couldn't fit herself into her old clothes as easily without Sophie's help.

Sophie….unwavering Sophie. Brave Sophie.

"_Well, what do you think?" Sophie asked her as she sat up in bed with a look so radiant on her face that Tessa doubted anyone would ever again notice the scar on her cheek. _

_ "Promise you won't tell Charlotte?" Tessa asked as she sat down next to Sophie and smiled. _

_ "Oh, Tessa."_

_ "I think this is the prettiest baby I've ever seen," Tessa told her as she cradled Sophie's newborn to her chest. That wonderful little creature with his mother's dark hair and his father's light eyes. He was so pink and small and fit so perfectly in the crook of her arm. _

_ "Tessa…I know I shouldn't ask you, miss."_

_ "I hate when you call me 'miss'."_

_ "Old habits die hard," Sophie said as she brushed her son cheek. "I know I won't live forever and I don't want to, but I love him so deeply I don't even know how to explain it. Could you watch over him for me? Care for him when I'm gone?"_

_ Tessa settled Sophie's son back into Sophie's arms and brushed the new mother's hair out of her eyes. "I will care for him as if he were my own." _

She had kept her word.

To Sophie and to Charlotte, who'd asked her the same question.

Their families thrived.

The second box was filled with pictures of Cecily.

First a girl, driven and talented, then a woman so beautiful it was some times hard to look at her. She had that same fire that Will had, burning like a blue inferno inside of her. Jessamine paled in comparison to Cecily.

She remembered Cecily's smiles, warm enough to rival the sun. And when she was angry, she was like lighting, scorching everything she touched.

She'd been born to be a great Shadowhunter.

She had done them all proud.

Gabriel had been particularly annoyed by her talent, yet in the end, he'd been just as amazed by her as the rest of them had been.

There was a steele tucked into a long thin box. It had been Cecily's. One of her necklaces, one that Will had given her, lay next to it.

"I wish I was more like you," Tessa muttered as she touched Cecily's necklace with its wonderful flying heron.

Will had nearly gone gray when he'd seen her handle a seraph blade, her hair wild around her head, those eyes on fire. Typical Cecily had laughed at him and called him old.

Her friends had been never given up.

Even when Mortmain had outwitted them and sent his army to conquer them, they had stood indestructible.

If she wanted to be anything like them, this was her turn to be fearless.

She stood, gathering her skirts. The glamour fell away as she scribbled on a piece of paper a small note to Magnus. The fire in her living room consumed the paper quickly and Tessa spun away from it as she tapped her heels on the floor than spring for the seraph blade hidden behind her copy of _Hamlet_.

"Is it dress up day?" Magnus appeared in the ladder outside of her window, looking in with a frown. "Can I come in?"

She unlatched the window and heaved it open. "Good, I'm glad you got my note."

"Yes, in the middle of a movie theater. I had to perform a memory spell on at least one hundred people," he muttered as he swung his long legs inside.

"My commiserations," she said as she closed the window behind him.

"I love this dress. It brings out the blue in your eyes," he told her quietly. "But I'm certain you've called me to discuss something other that Victorian fashion. Something a little more heart wrenching and potentially harmful to this friendship?"

"I can try to be mad at you, Magnus, but we both know it won't last long," she told him as led the way into her bedroom.

Magnus cast a silent look over the memoirs covering her floor. "What, exactly, are you doing?"

"The Book of the White can destroy a lesser warlock. We saw what it did to Zabe Moss."

Magnus nodded. "He never had a chance."

Tessa disappeared into her closet. He could hear her shuffling things around. "To handle the spells would require an old warlock, someone who's been introduced to the darkest of the spells."

"I don't like where this is going," he muttered to himself as he threw himself on her bed.

"Magnus, where is your father?"

He truly did not like where this was going. "I don't bring your family into the conversation just like that, do I? Not a single warning!"

"Oh, please! You threw me at my family!" Tessa's head popped out of her closet. She was free of the gown, yet hadn't put back her normal clothes. "Where is he?"

"It doesn't matter," he groaned. "He's useless to us. When Sebastian first took Jace, we went to him."

"And?"

"Age has made him indifferent. He could care less and he's certainly not siding with Valentine's devil spawn."

Tessa stepped out of her closet in white pants, a cream sweater and her hair in a severe bun. Her eyes were grey again. "Reassuring."

"I thought so, too."

"That leaves us with a list of twenty warlocks."

"Scattered about the world."

"All who hate the Clave."

"Where do we begin?"

Tessa rearranged the seraph blade she had in her hand into a holster conveniently hidden by her waist. "Anass Haywood."

Magnus let out a low whistle. "That one hates you."

"Summon thy pretty Nephilim and the Daylighter. We might need them," she said as she opened a small drawer on her vanity table and produced a piece of chalk. "I'll get started on a portal."

"Maybe we should discuss a plan first of all?"

Tessa shook her head. Magnus was taken aback by the look on her face, a look so blatantly William. "Act first. Deal with ramifications later."

"My God, what beast have I unleashed?" He did as she asked though, and pulled out his phone. It was easy to convince Simon to abandon what he was doing, he was now devoted to their cause despite his obvious fear of Tessa. Alec, in the other hand, asked a million questions before he gave in.

It wasn't long before Magnus welcomed both into Tessa's apartment, looking somewhat sheepish. "She's on what you'd call a 'roll'."

"I've seen her on a roll," Simon whispered to Alec, "it's not pretty."

"Gentlemen, thank you so much for coming today. You're help is much appreciated," Tessa said as she stepped back from the wall she'd been working on. Alec and Simon exchanged a look. She'd drawn a massive portal. "Are we ready to proceed?"

"Before we go anywhere, where are we going?" Alec asked her with a raised brow.

"So suspicious, Lightwood. Gabriel would be proud," Tessa told him. "We are going to Argentina. Buenos Aires."

"I promised my mom I'd be home for dinner," Simon piped up. "Is this going to take a long time?"

"Only if we keep delaying ourselves," she replied.

"Is this something we should share with the Clave?" Alec asked Magnus.

The warlock looked at Tessa for a second, than back at his boyfriend. "Maybe not."

"There's going to be blood involved, isn't there?"

"Very good chance."

Alec sighed. "No one tell Izzy about this. She'll be pissed we didn't think to invite her."

Tessa turned to the portal, back straight. She began to mutter things under her breath, whispering even as the portal began to glow.

"Alec," Simon said quietly.

"Yeah?"

"Does it smell like trouble to you?"

"Reeks of it."

"Okay."

"Shall I lead the way?" Magnus asked once Tessa appeared to be finished.

"If you would please," she said as she waved him forth.

Magnus grabbed Alec's hand and both walked into the portal without a look backwards.

"Forgive me if I don't want to hold your hand just yet," Simon muttered to Tessa as he nervously took a step into the portal.

She followed a second later, letting out all her breath as she stepped into an empty and narrow ally. The sun was starting to set and there was little light left. The sound of music floated at them from multiple directions. Behind Tessa, the portal disappeared like a mirage.

"Don't tell me he lives in the same place," Magnus said to her as he flicked his hair from his face.

"Oh, he does. Creature of habit."

She led the way down the alley. As they turned into a bigger street, Simon couldn't help noticing that Tessa's pale clothes made her stand out like a bright moon in a dark sky. Each house was painted in bright colors that assaulted the eyes, yet Tessa was steady and firm. She never looked sideways.

"This is nice. Pretty," Simon said to Magnus. "I could see you living here. You'd match the décor."

"This neighborhood is known as La Boca. I lived here once," he replied.

"I'm not surprised," Simon muttered. "What are we looking for?"

"I don't want to ruin the surprise."

They went a couple more blocks before Tessa stopped in front of red house with a neon blue door. There was a white gate in front of it.

"Looks very normal," Alec said. "Should I ring the door bell?"

"Please," Tessa said. Her eyes were glued on the door.

Alec did and they all took a step back.

Moments later, the door opened just a bit. Tessa leaned in. "Hello. Is your mommy home?"

Simon glanced over her head at the little boy. He had huge brown eyes and he was biting his lip. He shook his head hastily. He smelled funny. "Is your daddy here?"

He shook his head again.

"Do you know what happens to bad little boys who engage in dark magic?" she asked.

The boy's eyes narrowed. Simon thought that he saw blue fangs. His eyes glowed yellow. "Theresa Gray."

"Open the door, Anass. Or we'll blow this building to bits."

X

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Merry Late Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Joyous Kwanza! Season Greetings!

I hope everyone has enjoyed the recent festivities! In other world news, I wanted to clarify my trail of thought. There has been a major character change in Tessa. Yes, I noticed and of course I did it on purpose. Tessa is by nature a quiet and calm creature and she's fond of her little comforts, but she's also recognizes that the people she loves and wants to protect more than herself are in danger. Hence, Tessa is also about as nice as a lioness protecting her cubs.

Side note, does any one know any really good Infernal Devices stories that I could read? Or knows anyone who would love to start discussing with me all the possible outcomes of the series? I want to finish this story before Lost Souls comes out!


	14. Chapter 14

XXX ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO CASSANDRA CLARE XXX

"Can I grace you with my most worthy presence?" Jace leaned against the door of Maryse's office, arms crossed over his chest.

His adoptive mother, sitting behind her antique desk, looked up with an amused smile. "Your opinion of yourself far overestimates itself," she told him as she sorted through another pile of papers. "But please, come in."

Jace would always wonder how mundane children related to their mundane parents. It certainly wasn't in the same way that he, Alec and Isabelle related to their own mother. Maryse was no shoulder to cry on, not someone who'd kiss your bruises, bake you cookies, or take you iceskating. The most motherly he'd ever seen her was when Max had died, when her power suits and heels couldn't hide the grief even the strongest of Shadowhunters felt at the lost of their own.

That shocking vulnerability hadn't lasted long, though.

She was back to the warrior that she was, not a caregiver, but a mentor and a leader. She was back to bossing them around and forcing knowledge into their heads while simultaneously ruling solely over New York with an iron fist that would have made Imogen Herondale waver.

Jace grudgingly admitted that there were times, few and far in between, when he was more scared of Maryse than he was proud to admit. "So, I went exploring in the library, you know, like a common Wednesday morning, but our Book of Lineages is missing."

Maryse glanced up. Alec had her eyes, a blue like periwinkle. "Misplaced. Most likely by you."

"Undoubtedly you came to that conclusion because I'm the only person in this family that reads," Jace began, "but no. It wasn't me."

"Clary?"

"No."

"I can't spend time on this, Jace. An Ifrit attempted to kidnap a child in Queens."

"You obviously don't understand my soul burning curiosity," he whined as he threw himself into the armchair across from Maryse's. It creaked and he thought Maryse was going to jump him.

"Show some respect for my furniture, if you would," she muttered. "What is this about soul breaking curiosity?"

"I wanted to trek back Stephen Herondale's lineage. Beyond Imogen, that is," he explained. "Call it in the spirit of acceptance."

It was enough of an announcement that Maryse actually set down her pen and sat back. "This is interesting."

"Yes, yes, good to know I still have the ability to make you question my motives." He swept a long over her. "Do you remember much?"

"Herondales have been around since the founding of Alicante," Maryse said. "Stephen prided himself in the strength of his blood, the blood of the firsts. I'm sorry if I don't remember much."

Jace shrugged. "I'll find it. Did you ever meet Tessa Gray?"

"Where did you hear that name?" Out of the things he could have said to surprise her, this was the one that did the job. She looked perplexed, flabbergasted.

"Magnus." Jace wasn't sure what to make of her reaction, of the way she crossed her arms and stared him down. "Maybe that wasn't the name. No, no, I don't think it was."

Maryse quieted him with a look. "It's the right name," she said softly. "Tessa Gray. I haven't heard that name in years. I saw her in Alicante months ago. I thought I was imagining things."

No longer as worried that Maryse was going to have a heart attack at the mention of Tessa, Jace sat back in his chair. "You know her?"

There was a faint smile in Maryse's face. "When we were little our parents used to let us stories about her. She seemed so…far away. The kind legend even Nephilim wished they could be."

There was something so wistful about the way Maryse smiled that Jace leaned forward. "What about—"

The doors burst open, relieving Magnus and Alec. The Shadowhunter had blood across his neck and cheeks, and Magnus' hair looked somewhat deflated. Maryse's eyes rounded, for a second Jace thought she would actually try to hug Alec, but she just pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and offered it to him.

"Are you all right?"

Alec cast her a quick glance and a noncommittal nod. "It's not my blood."

"Which begs the question as to who did you go off on?" Jace asked noting that aside from the blood on his neck and cheeks, Alec looked pretty well. "And why wasn't I invited?"

"It was an impromptu trip," Magnus muttered as he watched Alec sit down with a groan.

"Yeah? Where?"

Magnus and Alec exchanged a look, but neither said anything. Mayse stepped around her desk, closer to her son. She raked him with a look, but Alec seemed indifferent to it.

"I trust no greater accident happened?"

Alec started to shake his head, but Magnus stepped in. "We paid a visit to an old acquaintance of mine in Buenos Aires."

"Bad acquaintance, huh? Is he still breathing?" Jace asked.

"Not after he attempted to jump Simon."

Understanding settled around the room. Maryse crossed her arms over her chest and stood firm. "You killed a warlock in Buenos Aires?"

"Simon killed a warlock in Buenos Aires," Alec corrected her.

"Does the Buenos Aires Institute know this?"

"We didn't leave New York with the intention of killing anyone. And besides, this was personal," Magnus said calmly.

"Magnus, you of all people should understand that nothing that involves Shadowhunters, vampires, and warlocks can easily become—"

"Sebastian has acquired the Book of the White. He is looking for warlocks who can teach him how to use the Book. We already know he's managed to bind some lower class demon powers to his, but without the Book I imagine the results must be weak and short lasting. We left in a hurry hoping to—"

"What?" The words somehow didn't seem to make sense to Jace. He heard them, knew they were some how crucial but he couldn't understand why Magnus and Alec of all people would have delivered them to him. And Simon…

"The Book has been lost to the Nephilim for centu—" Maryses began.

Jace wasn't paying attention to her, though. Alec was looking back at him, his eyes unwavering; the expression on his face serious. "Listen, before you even think to argue."

Magnus sunk to a gilded chaise by Alec's chair. "It doesn't matter how he came about the Book," he said quietly, "what matters is that we have a way of tracking his whereabouts and now we know how to stop him."

"Magnus—"

"It was my decision not to tell you, Jace,"

All eyes spun around to the door, once again open and occupied. Tessa stood there, her pale clothes were like a beacon against the dark hall behind her yet did nothing to hide the blood staining the hem of her pants or the sleeve of her sweater. Her hair had come slightly undone from a bun and the tendrils brushed her neck and shoulders.

After seeing her so—poised—it was hard not to notice that there was something strangely disheveled about her.

"I could have come!" He burst out.

There was considerably less heat to his temper than ever before. Even he had to admit that it was partially thanks to her. Tessa's expectations of him, her firmness, her steadiness, her unwavering belief that he could be so much more if he just stood calm.

"Just because you could have come, doesn't mean I would have taken you," she said as she stepped into Maryse's office and promptly closed and locked the door behind her. She extended a finger out, tapped the surface twice, then turned back to them. "There are things out there, Jace, that wouldn't think twice before attempting to possess you. I may have lost you to Sebastian once already, but I won't so lax in the future."

Her tone, her steps, the hardness of her grey eyes reminded him of the second time they had met and she had left him hanging from the kitchen chandelier. She stopped in front of Maryse and he was actually amazed by the fact that she was nearly as tall as Maryse despite his adoptive mother's shoes.

"Theresa Gray, pleased to make your acquaintance." Tessa didn't offer her hand and Jace had the slight impression she might even bob a curtsy, but instead Tessa stood there and held Maryse's gaze. "I do believe it was about time we were introduced."

They had to give Maryse props for how quickly she regained her composure. "Welcome to the Institute, Ms. Sta—"

Tessa shot her a look that would have frozen any lesser creature. "Thank you. I hear that despite all this, you have controlled this city with skill worthy of mention."

Something passed between the two of them. Something that even Jace didn't want to prod.

"Tess?"

She stepped towards him, eventually towering over his chair. "Simon vanquished a warlock today called Anass Haywood, an old acquaintance of Magnus and I. Once we learned that Sebastian had acquired the Book of the White, it occurred to us that he may seek out a warlock knowledgeable enough and strong enough to instruct him on its use. We found that Sebastian had been in Buenos Aires and that he did try to convert Anass but our old friend knew when he was over his head."

"Then why kill him?" Maryse asked from behind her.

"Because Haywood, as it turns out, has a taste for human liver," Alec told her with a grunt. "Simon found a woman's remains."

"He won't be missed," Magnus muttered as he ran his fingers through his hair.

"Where's Simon?" Jace asked looking towards the door.

"Dinner. With his mother," Tessa told him softly. She let her hand rest on his shoulder. "The next few weeks will be hard, Jace. He's spending whatever time he can with her now."

Remembering that despite her nearest Tessa was always somewhere far away, Jace wondered what she could already foresee.

"What will we have to do?" Maryse asked before he could.

"Nothing. If you grant Alec leave, I would like to handle finding Sebastian between Magnus, Alec, Simon and I."

The room went into an uproar.

The arguments came primarily from Jace himself and Maryse. Alec seemed to pay little attention as he continued to rub the warlock blood off his face. Magnus sat staring at the rug, thumbs twirling.

"Please, enough," Tessa said after she'd let them talk themselves breathless.

Jace could feel his throat burning. He didn't like the way she was looking at him or at Maryse. The way an old person, with so much experience and weariness, might look at a child attempting to prove himself.

"You are not yet an adult by Nephilim standards," she told him quietly. "And without your bond, without the tie that links you firmly to us, I can't allow you to come with us."

It always came back to that bond.

He felt heavy, some how defeated even though he knew that it was miracle he was here with them to begin with.

"As for you," Tessa turned to Maryse, "I would think that your primary interest is securing your city and your children. Sebastian will see you coming, Maryse, but he has no idea that I have picked up his trail. I'm sure even Clave would agree with my approach."

For some reason, Jace thought that Tessa's tone sounded vaguely like a challenge. He saw lock eyes with her for a moment. "May I speak to you alone?"

Out of them all, the only one that could have argued was Alec, an adult Shadowhunter on his own right. Instead, he stood, put a hand on Magnus' shoulder and nudged him up. Both of them had to tug Jace along. He hesitated, reaching for Tessa.

Her hand met his. "I'll come find you as soon as I'm done here."

He nodded and let Alec and Magnus drag him out. He didn't move any further than the hallway. As soon as the door closed behind him, he tried to put his ear to it.

"It's useless. She place a spell on it," Magnus told as he pushed back his sleeve and checked his watch.

"Can't you break it?"

"Of course I can break it. I taught it to her. I taught her everything she knows," Magnus snorted. "I'm just not sure we want to hear that they are saying to each other."

"As long as they don't start hitting each other, I don't care," Alec said as he began pulling his jacket off. "I'm going to bed. I've been tossed around enough for today."

"Walk me out first?" Magnus asked as he linked arms with his boyfriend.

Alec blushed slightly but led the way.

Jace wondered where Clary was to support him through this.

He sagged against the wall, head between his knees. Despite his angelic gift, he couldn't hear a word they were saying to each other. All he could do was sit there are wait.

And whether it lasted ten minutes or an hour, it still felt like he sat there for hours waiting for them to finish.

When the door opened and Tessa stepped out, she looked a lot more like herself than in the beginning. She offered him a hand to stand up. Maryse hovered in the doorway, looking at him with a teary expression.

"Well?"

Tessa stepped closer to him and her arms went around him as she gave him a tight hug. She smelled of French perfume. She squeezed him tight, then pulled back and patted his shoulder lightly. "We won't let anything happen to you. Never."

He watched Maryse nod in agreement. "Tessa will let us know if we can do anything. Until then, we have to keep you and Clary safe. We won't take any risks."

"You'll be gone often?" He asked Tessa.

She nodded. "Do as Maryse says, please."

"If you get the Book, will you be able to bind me to someone other than Sebastian?"

"I don't know," she answered and at least, he thought, she was being honest. "Have hope."

Having hope was something that Clary did. He was the kind that moped or turned to sarcasm. He was more likely to try and attempt to find Sebastian in his own and kill him than wait quietly at home.

"I'll do what I can."

"I suppose it's all I could ask for," she replied airily. "Maryse."

His adoptive mother nodded and Tessa saluted them both quickly and quietly and in a second she was walking down the hall leaving them alone.

Jace looked back at Maryse. "Is she still the legend you made her out to be?"

"Scarier."

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Hi everyone! Thank you so much for all your reviews and comments. Nací en Brasil y que pasan mucho tiempo viajando alrededor del mundo. Me encanta Argentina, especialmente de La Boca. You'll be seeing a lot more foreign locations where I've been and where I imagine Magnus and Tessa would have to go to find the warlocks they need. Maybe even an appearance by MB's dear old dad? Anass, by the way, is the name of a kid who bit me in kindergarten, I haven't forgotten and he's still my most loathsome villain. Also, keep an eye out for another love story I'll be publishing soon, thanks to liddlepierat who said "no risk, no fun".


	15. Chapter 15

XXX ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO CASSANDRA CLARE XXX

"How long have they been gone this time?" Clary asked as she entered the library and closed the door behind her.

It was raining outside, it hadn't stopped raining in days. She wondered if it was raining because Jace was sad or if Jace was sad because it was raining.

True to her word, Maryse had established a rigid curfew for him, always home by nightfall, never out of her sight or Izzy's. As the days passed, he got antsier, pacing the Institute, throwing windows open only to slam them shut the next moment.

"Two days," he sighed.

"Did she say where they'd be?"

"She doesn't say anything. She just wanders off and expects me to sit here and wait for her," he grumbled.

Clary raised an eyebrow, trying to contain a smile. "Doesn't feel very good, does it?"

The look he gave her was one she wished she could bottle and use on Sebastian. Instead, she took the seat next to his and threaded her fingers through his hair.

"Do you trust her to come back?"

"I didn't sleep last night just thinking about her."

"I'll be incredibly disappointed if you've fallen in love with her," Clary teased and Jace frowned.

"It's not like that," he grumbled and then realizing her tone, smiled weakly. "Tessa's like…ew…liking Tessa like that would be like me falling in love with Magnus."

Clary laughed. "I'm glad she invokes repulsion."

"I just wish I could protect her," Jace frowned. "Last night, when I thinking about her in a completely non-romantic way, it occurred to me that we know also nothing about her at all."

Clary's fingers stopped. "We know she's British. And that she's powerful and Magnus loves and respects her."

"She was close to Will Herondale," Jace added. "With the things she knows, they must have been very close."

"So I guess we know what really matters."

Jace shook his head. "It's not enough. Some times when she talks to me I feel like she would literally lay waste to this city if it meant taking care of me. I think if she really wanted to, she could."

Clary nodded slowly. "Do you remember when we were in Alicante?"

"I wish I could forget," he mumbled.

"At the Victory Celebration, I think I saw Magnus talking to her. She was dressed in white, remember? She was looking at us and I remember thinking she looked familiar. Very familiar," Clary said as she stood up and walked to one of the shelves.

"What are you saying?"

Clary rummaged through the shelves, looking for a spare sketchbook she had gotten into the habit of leaving behind in the Institute. Whenever she had spare time, or when the runes came to her when she least expected it, she used it to keep a record. Finding it, she returned to Jace's side and began to flip through the pages.

The first fifteen pages were filled with sketches of Jace, so many that they both blushed and flipped faster. And then all the pages were filled with Tessa Gray.

Her eyes, in exact shades, her hair, falling in the same precise way, her smile, shy but knowing. The shape of her face, that mouth….

"We need to find that Book of Lineages," Jace muttered. He stood up, setting Clary's sketches aside and going to the shelves.

"What's so important about that book? Why is it that everything we do now revolves around books?"

"The book contains all the Shadowhunter family trees. The Brothers print the books and each Institute gets one. It's a version of a census."

"So what exactly are you trying to say?"

"I don't know what I'm trying to say, but I'm certain it will be brilliant."

He began pulling books down, setting them in high piles all around him. The more books he pulled down, the more frustrated he got.

"Well, if I knew we were rearranging, I would have brought along my painting shoes." Isabelle stepped into the library, five-inch heels clicking against the wood floor. Her hair was pulled back and she had a fresh iratze carved on the side of her neck.

"Ah, the illusive Isabelle Lightwood. I was beginning to wonder where we lost you," Jace said as grabbed another book.

"What can I say, while everyone else is having great moments of life changing clarity, I'm still just hanging out with transvestites and participating in Wednesday night karaoke."

"Where you, Izzy?" Clary asked.

"Queens." She picked up Clary's sketchbook and shuffled the pages. For a moment she just stared. And then she pulled a piece of paper free and spread it across the table. She pointed at it with a frown. "Who the hell is Tessa Gray?"

X

"Half breeds! You will burn!"

Simon leaned against the outside of the wooden shack, slowing sinking to the ground with his head between his knees. Tyron Lusa, a warlock Magnus had deemed completely capable, hadn't stopped screaming in hours.

Not that anyone could hear him, his pretty little house was in the middle of Greenland, nestled in rolling hills of rock.

When he'd caught sight of Tessa, that was when all hell had broken out.

Simon was listened to Tyron's chair scrape against the floor as he thrashed around trying to get loose. It wasn't a smart idea, considering the fact that Alec was ready to kill him and Tessa was in a particularly sad mood which meant that Magnus had gone through a great deal of trouble to amuse her. Before being tied down, Tyron had entertained them all with a wonderful lyrical routine. His reluctance to participate had meant that he'd lost several teeth and three broken ribs.

Alec wasn't done with him yet.

"Half breeds! Bast—" the sound of bones breaking made Simon wince.

"Shall we try this again, Tyron?" Magnus asked. "We've come looking for someone. Has a demon's spawn tried to contact you?"

"You freak! You disgust me!" Tryon screamed at her and again that horrible noise of fist against jaw.

With a sigh, Simon pushed himself up. If Tyron didn't stop soon, they would surely end this interview and be on their way home. He stepped back into the little house, chocking on the smell of sulfur. Tyron was a creature so hideous that he made a behemoth demon look like a puppy. He had blue fangs nearly three inches long and his yellow eyes weren't pretty like Magnus' but the color of pus. He was nearly seven feet tall, with long black hair and pale skin.

"Yes, I know what you think of me," Tessa said softly. "Has a demon's spawn tried to contact you?"

"Demon spawn?" Tyron repeated. Simon could tell he was thinking up a lie.

"Tall, blond, with eyes as black as ink. He smells like hell," Simon told him.

"No one like that," Tyron assured him. Those yellow eyes turned on him. "Do you know how powerful you could be? You could defeat them all. Let go of the Clave, vampire. They will do you no good."

"He's lying," Alec said.

Magnus had been walking around Tyron's little house. As ugly as the warlock was, he had a pleasant taste in art. His walls were covered in oils and pastels and strange and fascinating sculptures.

"What did he want, Tyron?" Magnus asked calmly.

The warlock was not very forth coming and his words only served to anger Alec, being that Tyron thought very little of Magnus. Simon was certain he was going to lose his head if he didn't mind his language. In the end, he was bleeding in his own carpet. The end was coming fast.

"Again. What did he want?" Tessa asked.

"You know what he wanted," Tyron screeched. "The Book! He doesn't know how to use the Book!"

"Did you help him?"

Tyron thrashed in his chair. "Help? How? I don't have the skills for that book!"

"Is that true?" Alec asked Magnus.

"No."

Alec raised his hand and this time when it made contact, Tyron's jaw looked strangely deformed.

"Great, how's he gonna talk now?" Simon asked.

"He'll find a way if he wants to survive," Alec said numbly.

Something in the warlock's eyes snapped. He growled at Alec, but something about the Shadowhunter was just as menacing at Tyron. Alec, Simon realized, had grown up.

"He will kill all of you!" Tyron screeched.

"Unlikely," Tessa stated quietly.

"A curse upon your family!"

Simon saw Tessa's eyes narrow, but Magnus stepped forward. "You've been summoning demons, haven't you? Your house smells of them. You really shouldn't make threats about curses if you can't carry them out."

"You dishonor our kind! You halfbreeds!" Tyron screamed at them.

Magnus stepped forward, his hand flat against Tyron's chest. "Whom did you summon?"

Where Magnus' hand rested a smell of burned flesh rose. Tyron cried out, the noise like nails in a chalkboard. He thrashed around but Alec's knot held him tight. "Half breeds! You will burn!"

"Set him loose," Tessa told Alec.

He hesitated, studying her carefully before he swung his sword and cut through the ropes holding Tyron to his chair. He seemed surprised to be free, but when he came to his feet, he lounged head first towards Tessa.

She reached behind her back, pulling free a curved dagger. "_Azer_." The steel came alive with blue fire, licking at her fingers. In the blink of an eye, it was free of Tessa's fist and logged in Tyron's sternum. The warlock froze as Tessa stepped towards him, her hand closing around the protruding hilt. She yanked at it. "Do not threaten my family."

Tyron fell to the ground, lifeless.

Simon stared at Tessa. She was shaking slightly, pale. He put a hand on her shoulder and held her steady. "I think he's done cursing people for the rest of our combined eternal lives."

She let out a breathless, nervous giggle. "You think?"

"That's the second warlock we've killed in two weeks, not to mention the fifth we've interviewed. What now?" Alec asked Magnus.

"I suppose I shall have to scour the bowls of hell and listen to all the _on dits _of who has gone missing from down there_. _" Magnus checked his nails. "I would also like to mention that it is very likely that after this particular death, Sebastian will know that we are searching for those able to instruct him on the uses of the Book."

"Well, I'm not surprised he jumped on Sebastian's demonic bandwagon," Simon said as he rolled Tyron's body over with his foot. "He called you bastards and halfbreeds. I mean, that's serious."

"You cannot fault a warlock who speaks the truth," Tessa told him as she cleaned her dagger in a kitchen cloth. "I am a half-breed, Simon."

Tessa saw Simon and Alec exchange a quick look. "So, like, half warlock, half human?"

"Something like that."

"It still does not answer what the next step is," Alec said as he caught Tessa's obvious attempt to leave it at that. There were no such thing as half-breed warlocks, he had learned that as a child.

"I thought it was obvious," Tessa said as she straightened her jacket. "We offer Magnus to Sebastian."

The silence that filled the little house was only broken by Magnus' humorless chuckle. "Of course. How simple."

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Hi everyone! I swear we are getting to the good stuff soon. I wanted to let you know I've published another TID story. All you have to do is click on my profile to find it. I would really appreciate some reviews. Just say "yay" or "nay" or "what were you thinking?" I hope you like it.


	16. Chapter 16

XXX ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO CASSANDRA CLARE XXX

Tessa heard the footsteps coming down the hall and smiled to herself.

He had a very specific way of walking. Each footfall was determined and purpose full.

He walked like her.

She stood up, gathered her cashmere shawl around her and went to open the door.

"Are you hungry?"

Jace grinned sheepishly. "How do you know?"

"It's lunch time, dear." She waved him in and led him to the kitchen. There was a kettle in the stove and a tea set laid out. "Sit while I get everything ready for us."

Jace watched as she set the table for them, fascinated by Tessa's motherly smile. "I've been talking to Clary."

"That's nice, Jace." With the table set, she waved her hand and he looked down to find a bowl of tomato soup in front of him.

"I mean, we've been talking about the Herondales. About William."

"Good."

"I want to know more him."

Sitting across from him, Tessa nodded solemnly. "Alright. Ask away."

Jace took a deep breath. She could tell it was taking him everything he got to not blurt out every single question he had. "Are we alike?"

Tessa couldn't contain the burst of laughter that came out of her. It sounded like a sob. "Not really."

Jace's eyes widened and he paled and looked down at his soup. He picked up the spoon, staring at it. "Well, then."

"Will had two sisters. Ella and Cecily. Ella was the eldest. His father was a Shadowhunter, Edmund Herondale. He left the Enclave when he fell in love with a mundane. You Herondales love with no restrain," Tessa muttered.

She looked up to find his eyes trained her on. Those bright, sunshine eyes. No Herondale had those eyes. "When Will was growing up, every year his father asked if he wanted to leave Wales behind and join the Enclave. He was a happy child, according to Cecily. Stubborn. A little wild. He loved the rain and mud. Even when I knew him, he had this talent for dragging mud everywhere he went. Part of his charm."

Tessa sighed. She'd never told this story herself. Yet she couldn't forget the first time she'd heard it. "I think that if things had been different, he would never have joined the Enclave."

"Did his father die? Is that why he joined?" Jace asked.

"No." Tessa pulled her shawl closer. "He was twelve. He found a pyxis in his father's study, one of the very few things his father had kept from his Shadowhunter days. He had no idea what it was and he opened it, releasing Marbas into his home. You were raised a Shadowhunter, Jace. You would have known better, but he knew nothing of that world at all, save that his father had once belonged. Can you imagine the fear he must have felt, seeing for the first time this hideous creature that came out of a small box?"

Tessa realized only too late that he must have seen terrible things as Valentine's child. "Will always described Ella as fearless. She must have been because she faced Marbas, having never been trained just so she could save her little brother."

"Did she die?" Jace looked as if he didn't want to know the answer any more than Tessa wanted to tell him.

"Yes. She chased Marbas away, but he poisoned her with a barb. When they found her in bed the next morning, she was unrecognizable." Tessa sighed. Her hands trembled slightly.

"What did Will do?"

"Ran away from home. He thought it was his fault that Ella had died. When Marbas had escaped the pyxis, he told Will that everyone who dared to love him would die. So Will ran away from his parents, from Cecily, to keep them safe. He went to London, demanded entry into the Institute and Charlotte welcomed him in. His parents came for him, to take him home, to explain that it wasn't his fault, but he was so scared that he sat in a corner, huddled, alone while they screamed his name from the street."

She could see him in her mind's eye. Will, broken down, needing nothing but comfort and guidance. She hadn't been there to give him that when he needed it, but she'd be there for Jace. Even if it cost her everything that she had and that she was, Jace would never be alone again.

"Magnus turned it all around though," she said as she gathered her emotions and held them in a tight grip. "He summoned Marbas, hoping to release Will from his curse but Marbas told them that there had no curse in the first place and swore on it. He told Will that Ella died because she was wounded from the attack."

"By the Angel," Jace breathed out. His looked sick to his stomach.

"Magnus killed Marbas. Out of revenge for Will. He had a soft spot for those blue eyes," Tessa said lightly. She shook her head with a sad smile. "I think it was the happiest and the saddest day of William's life."

"Why?"

"He was rude and arrogant, always utilizing his quick wit and sarcasm not for amusement but the hopes of hurting people, Jace. He was aware of how beautiful he was and used it to get his way. He was mean and he lied to us. He said things that…" Tessa thought about that night, on the roof, when he'd implied she was nothing but a prostitute. "He said a lot of things he would later regret. He did it all to keep us at arms-length, so we wouldn't love him. The day Marbas died was the day he could be himself again without ever having to fear that the people who he loved, the ones who loved him, would be taken away."

"But you loved him before that, didn't you?"

"Yes. Unconditionally," she answered without restrain. "We all loved him, Jace. Despite everything he said, everything he did, we always knew that he was better than that. He was caring and self-sacrificing and he could make me laugh, Jace, even when I wanted to hate him."

"All those years, he lied?"

"He never truthfully represented himself since he was 12 years old to anyone, not even Jem."

"I hate lying," Jace said. He scratched the back of his neck. "But sometimes I—when I feel bad about myself—I do things to hurt the people I love and I don't apologize."

"I know. We all make mistakes."

"But he did it to protect people. Not because—"

"Jace," Tessa set her hands over his. Her fingers were warm as she clasped his hand tightly. "He was no better of a man than you are now. You only have to look at your family, Jace, to know that. You could have been a great tragedy, Jace, you could have destroyed and mangled all your relationships but instead you built them. Alexander, Isabelle, and Maryses know that they can trust and you know that you can trust them. With Will, after all that time he spent pushing us away, he was a stranger to us when he finally decided that it was alright to let us love him."

"He's a stranger to me."

Tessa nodded solemnly. "He hated ducks. With a passion. He had a beautiful smile, like sunshine. Like mischief. The smile of a fallen angel. He could have made getting bitten by vampires into an Olympic sport. He loved Agatha's jam tart. And he wrote a jig about demon pox.

_ Demon pox, oh demon pox,_

_Just how is it acquired?_

_One must go down to the bad part of town_

_Until one is very tired._

_Demon pox, oh demon pox_

_I had it all along—_

_No, not the pox, you foolish blocks,_

_I mean this very song—_

_For I was right, and you were wrong!_

"I rather have the pox than sing that song," Jace said with a shake of his head.

"He had a dance that went along with it," Tessa chuckled. "Catchy little thing. I hadn't thought of it in years."

"Are you certain we are from the same line?" He had a look on his face, the look of doubt.

She nodded. "It doesn't matter that you have so few things in common, Jace. What matters is that at the very center of who you are, you are both wonderful men. Would you ever run from a fight? Would you ever give up? Would you let an innocent get hurt?"

"No."

Tessa grinned. "Neither would he. Would you protect the people you love to your last breath?"

"Yes."

"And when things are not going your way, do you either use bitter humor or closely resemble a statue?"

"'Adapt yourself to the things among which your lot has been cast'," Jace quoted. "That was what—"

"Marcus Aurelius said. Yes, I know. Will told me," Tessa said. "He loved to read. Fiction was his favorite. Books, good ones and horrible ones, kept him alive for a long time."

"When I was little we had this library and I—" he frowned. "I used to like to read."

Tessa had no doubt that his thoughts had veered towards Valentine. "Wait here for a moment?"

He nodded and she dashed towards her room. There was an ancient copy of her favorite book by her bed side, just as it had been for nearly one hundred years. She kept it close, to chase away memories and to welcome them. Always near her heart.

As she approached Will, she wondered why after all this time she was willing to hand it over with so little remorse. "This is our favorite book," she began and then shook her head. "It's my favorite book. It was Will's, too."

She passed to Jace a copy of _A Tale of Two Cities. _He seemed perplexed by it. "Did he give this to you?"

She nodded. "He told me it was stupid and yet he could quote Sydney Carton all day long. I want you to have it."

Jace shook his head. "I can't have this. Tessa, this must mean the world to you."

"It does. It means everything, but I'm old, Jace. And I have all these wonderful memories of him to keep close. You should have this. To help you understand."

He couldn't argue with that. He was a bright boy. "You're sure?"

"Yes."

"Thank you."

"It is truly, and humbly, my pleasure." She sat down again, frowning at his soup. "It's gone cold."

"That's alright. I have food for thought now." He ran his hand over the cover, worn from handling. From being loved. "Tessa?"

"Yes?"

She watched him gather his courage and smiled inwardly. It had taken him far longer than she originally thought to come to this point. "Who are you?"

"Have you heard of Richard Feynman? He was quoted saying 'You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing-that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.'"

Jace grinned, a wholly-William-grin. "Yet Francis Bacon said that knowledge is power."

"Take comfort, Jace, in the knowledge that if you ever need me, I will always be here."

X

X

X

This is my last semester of my college career. I have to write chapters between reports on Middle Eastern politics and grad school applications. I'm also hooked on Harry Potter. It's crazy. I've read those when I was in middle school and high school, but now that I have to branch out and a big girl, those books remind me of childhood. What I'm trying to say is that I'm excited that so many people are enjoying this story. Makes me wonder if I should have been a English major and if I should start writing romance novels for a living. I would love some reviews. It's been a hard week.

Love,

Amanda


	17. Chapter 17

XXX ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO CASSANDRA CLARE XXX

The immortals met by the Brooklyn Bridge, in a warehouse Simon thought looked like a place where not even the homeless would settle down.

Tessa was looking over the river with a frown, dressed in white, her hair falling over the shoulders of her jacket. He was shocked to notice that Church was sitting by her foot, swishing his tail back and forth. Those yellow eyes were narrowed on

"I don't feel comfortable here," he said he approached her.

"Neither do I," she muttered. She waved at the river. "It's all the water."

"Does it have any affect on you?" Simon asked.

"None, but still." She shrugged. "What do you think?"

"New York will linger, I suppose," he muttered as he looked over the skyline of the city. He'd been born here, grown up here, and he didn't know how much longer he'd roam these streets before the need to wander the world restlessly for the rest of his existence. "Have you ever read the Bible?"

Tessa looked at him sideways. "Yes."

"I haven't touched one since I was turned," he told her. She was the first person he confided in.

"Because you are scared of being burned?"

"If I can't say His name, why should I be able to touch His book?" Simon asked.

Tessa shrugged. "Do you believe?"

"Yes."

"Psalm of David, Simon."

"I've never read the literature."

"'The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.'" She crossed her arms over her chest. "Camille can say His name because she is a nonbeliever, but she's also full of hatred and most days her own thoughts are so filled in despair that she surrounds herself with those creatures she calls her loved ones. Is that the kind of life you want?"

"No."

"Then continue to believe in God and fear Him."

He was astounded by her wisdom. Some times she looked her age and sounded like she was ancient. "Is that all?"

"Yes."

Simon looked back over the city. "This is where it will all go down?"

"'Go down'?" Tessa laughed. "By the Angel, Simon, this is not a mafia movie."

"Right. It's a show down between the Devil's grandson and the world's scariest creature."

"You think Magnus is that frightening?"

Simon glanced sideways at her. "I meant you. I think you might also be insane."

"Well, thank you, I suppose," she replied. "I would suggest, though, that you get over your fear of me soon. After all, you'll be sharing this world with my insanity until some one figures out how to kill you. Or me."

"Jeez."

"She has a strange sense of humor, doesn't she?" Magnus asked as he appeared out of thin air.

Simon was starting to not mind the way the two just came and went whenever they damned pleased. He noticed that when it was just the three of them, when Alec wasn't around, the mood was much easier to handle. When it was just them, Magnus and Tessa treated him like an equal.

Like someone who would be with them for eternity.

Somehow, that was comforting. And yet, not.

"You've been summoning demons, Magnus. You reek of them," Tessa said as she wrinkled her nose.

"I tried to sweat it out during hot yoga, but it seems to be entrenched in my pores. I have a shipment of strawberry lotion coming from France tomorrow," he said, "hopefully it will do something about the smell."

Simon rolled his eyes. "Did you figure out who Sebastian summoned?"

"Ah, yes. Culsu."

Simon had no idea who that was, but Tessa was frowning harder. "That makes no sense."

"I couldn't make anything of it, either," Magnus replied.

"Who is Culsu?" He would probably regret asking that question, but Simon felt they were going to keep him in the dark if he didn't bother asking.

"A she-demon. A keeper of gateways."

"Is she pretty?"

"Seven thousand years ago, maybe," Magnus shrugged. "Now she's a dried up husk."

Tessa laughed. Simon just felt awkward. "Why her?"

"No idea."

"He must know she won't stand a chance against Simon," Tessa said. "She wouldn't stand a chance against you."

"It could be that he's just trying out his strength."

"Why her, though? Weak or not, summoning Culsu would cost him a great deal of strength."

"If he's stealing power from other demons, it wouldn't have cost him anything," Simon pointed out. "Maybe he's just trying to ruffle your feathers."

"My feathers are sitting properly in all the right places," Tessa stated. "I am not one to be scared by empty threats."

"There is something else." Both Simon and Tessa looked to Magnus. "Tezcatlípoca is also missing."

This time there was an obvious change in Tessa's demeanor. Simon watched, with a certain amount of amusement and a great deal of fear, as she made her transition from sweet, humorous Tessa to the creature he thought could level New York City on a whim. Even Church took a good few steps away from her.

"Who's that one?" Simon asked Magnus quietly.

"An Aztec," Magnus explained. "A bloody black cloud."

"Is there a pamphlet that explains who all these crazy people are?"

"I'll get you one all soon as I finish next week's publication of Warlocks' Weekly," Magnus muttered.

"Is that the edition about the new velvet catsuit available only at Immortals 'R Us?"

"Your jokes are not appreciated at this moment," Tessa snapped. "Neither of you."

Simon grinned at Magnus, but sheepishly nodded. "Sorry."

"Tezcatlípoca," Tessa repeated to herself. "Magnus… Tezcatlípoca."

Simon watched Magnus frown. "What is it?"

"Out of all of the demons, Magnus. He picked a black cloud," she said softly as her eyes travelled back over the river.

"What's the problem with a black cloud?" Simon asked.

"He's an enemy demon. Quite literally a black cloud; a god spirit that steals away through the dark. You don't see him until he snatches away—"

"My Jace!" Tessa spun around. "Magnus! He'll come for Jace!"

X

Maryses threw the doors open and ran towards Tessa. "He's gone!"

Tessa stormed past her, eyes wild as she scanned the faces of the Shadowhunters gathered in the Institute's library. Clarissa was there, with Alexander and Isabelle. They were intact and her heart soared, but one that meant everything, the one that she couldn't lose.

He wasn't there. He'd been taken.

There were other faces she recognized only because they were so similar to their predecessors.

She nearly crashed into Alec's chair as she grabbed his face between her hands. Her grip was so tight that she left marks on his face. "Tess!" Magnus growled behind her, but her grip tightened and her body shook.

"Is he fine?"

Alec's eyes were round. He was pale, but he was nodding. "He's alive."

"What happened?"

Clary spoke up. "We were all walking, we were safe. It came out of nowhere. Just smoke. It surrounded Jace, we couldn't see anything happening around him. And when it all cleared, he was gone."

"Tessa." Magnus had to pry her fingers with Alec's jaw. "We need to find him now."

Alec's skin was discolored where Tessa's fingers had been. There would be bad bruises there soon.

"We'll go with you," Maryses said.

"No." She turned back towards the door, ignoring all the eyes that followed her.

Maryses appeared in front of her, trying to block the way. "You can't do this alone. He's my son, Tessa."

"He's mine, Maryses. And I'll bring him back myself."

X

X

X

X

Hi everyone, this is a pretty short chapter because there's a ball rolling and I've got action in the brain. r.e.v.i.e.w. Gracias.

-Chair


	18. Chapter 18

XXX ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO CASSANDRA CLARE XXX

Alec had stayed behind, either to ensure that his mother and siblings didn't interfere or because he didn't want to see what Magnus and Tessa were about to do.

Magnus' apartment had lost its shine as the warlock produced maps upon maps of the city and spread them around the flat surfaces of the living room. Chairman Meow had disappeared into the bedroom after he'd caught sight of the bowls and crystals Magnus had started to pull out of the cupboards. These were the things that Magnus would never want his guests, or Alec, to see.

This was the ugly side, the beastly other half.

Tessa had begun to arrange the maps in a row, clearing her mind and her bringing order to the world around her before she started on the chaos that would chase after them soon. Her heart still beat painfully in her chest, a deathly fear that threatened to consume her.

No matter how much she loved all the children, she loved Jace the most. He was a solid link to her past, a last living descendent she could protect. To lose him now, it would be worse than having lost Will all those years ago. At least when Will had gone, she'd had Cecily and Sophie and Charlotte and Henry and all of their children to love and protect. But if something happened to Jace…what would become of her?

She shook herself out of those thoughts. Jace would survive, even if she didn't. "Where to start?"

"You'll have to scry the maps. You'll feel him better than I can," Magnus said as flicked his wrists and his furniture moved to the walls. He had a piece of chalk in his hand and he began to draw a circle on the ground. "And I'm going to try to summon Tezcatlípoca."

"And if he's still beholden to Sebastian?"

"It will test his strength. Is he powerful enough that he can hold his minions from the Great Magnus Bane?" Magnus mused.

Tessa frowned. "Magnus, it will test your strength too."

"If we're going to go head to head against Sebastian, draining him now is our best move," Magnus replied. "Trust me."

She heaved a breath and gave him her back as she picked up a crystal attached to a copper chain. She approached a world map, one hand idly holding the crystal over the surface.

"I will need some of your blood," Magnus said from behind her.

She offered him her free hand, remembering the time she had split her palm on the chest plate of an automaton. Her skin opened, blood blossoming and running down her arm. Magnus hurried to catch it with a hollowed horn. Once it was half way filled, she let the shape change to its real form. Shape shifters like her had a serious advantage of Shadowhunters and warlocks. "What are you going to do with my blood?"

"Protective spell. The only thing Tezcatlípoca hates more than world peace is your blood."

Tessa rolled her eyes as Magnus literally painted her blood on the floor along his circle. She concentrated on the crystal, letting it hover over South America first, than Europe, than North America. The crystal swung faster and in tight circles around the East coast before she had to change to a smaller scale map.

She glanced at Magnus, at his straight posture and the black candles he had burning. The scent of demons was already in the air.

Any normal person would have been frightened to death as it was, yet Tessa was just slightly worried about Magnus' strength. On a map of New England, she watched the crystal draw closer to New York and Jersey. She wasn't surprised, she had doubted that Sebastian would have the foresight to take Jace as far from her as possible as fast as possible.

Either way, to the Moon and back, she would find Jace if it took her last breath.

There was a roar and the apartment shook, but Magnus looked unimpressed.

Magnus's circle had turned into a light dome and inside was the wavering figure of Tezcatlípoca. He was gigantic half-man half-beast in his true form, complete with a bull's horn and a lion's mane. He had great fangs, like a jaguars, that sprouted from his mouth.

"Still as ugly as ever," Magnus mused as he looked back at Tessa with a smile. "Don't you think?"

"Absolutely hideous," she muttered looking Tezcatlípoca.

"You!" He growled as he darted his eyes towards her. "Shadowhunter!"

Tessa would never seize to be amazed of the hatred so many demons had towards her. She'd never done anything to deserve it, except perhaps, destroy Mortmain's empire. Will and Jem had been partial to demon killing, but she herself was responsible to only a handful of their deaths. She tried not to look at Tezcatlípoca, if she did, she might try to kill him before Magnus extracted any information.

"Your little boy cried," Tezcatlípoca laughed. "Herondales have always been so weak. He screamed—"

Tessa would have reacted herself, but a seraph blade whirled out of nowhere, piercing through the crystal barrier and tearing through Tezcatlípoca's throat. Black blood sprayed out and he screamed. It was a screech so terrifying that Tessa grimaced, although she'd heard worse.

The ancient god fell to his knees, before turning to smoke and disappearing from sight. Nothing was left but a puddle of black goo.

Magnus spun around, eyes darting to the open door where Isabelle stood. She was dressed in white, her tattoos bright against her skin. Her electrum whip was wrapped around her waist, but her hand was still raised from when she'd thrown the blade at Tezcatlípoca.

"I could have sworn I told you to stay put," Tessa said as she raked Isabelle with a look.

"You did, yet I'm not one for following commands."

"I have half a mind to tie you up and lock you up in the broom closet," Tessa told her.

"I don't have a broom closet," Magnus quipped.

"In your bathroom then," she growled. She stood, gathering the crystal in her fist before beckoning Isabelle close. "That creature was going to lead us to Sebastian."

Isabelle took a hesitant step towards Tessa. "You don't need him," she muttered, "I can lead you there myself."

"Izzy," Magnus sighed. "What have you been up to?"

Her eyes met Tessa's. She seemed nervous, her face pale, and her hands trembling. "Do you think he hurt Jace?"

"What ever he did to Jace, your brother is strong," Tessa said quietly. "What do you know?"

"Every night they gather in Midtown. Sometimes just a few dozen, some times nearly a hundred. The weaker ones go in but never come out. The others get antsy, worried, but they keep coming back," she explained.

Magnus and Tessa exchanged a look. "Midtown?"

"An old tenant building. It's red brick, on the corner. I tried to go—"

"I will murder you myself if you think you are going inside of a demons' nest," Magnus told her. "Sit down, Izzy. Tell us how this got started."

Tessa made space for her, showing her the empty chair she could have. Izzy sank down, all that black hair fanning around her. She looked like Cecily. "Every one was busy all the time. Clary is studying with the Brothers, Jace has been on house arrest and Alec's always with you and I was by myself."

"Does that give you the liberty to go about following demons to the bowels of hell?" Tessa growled.

"This is a free country," Izzy reminded her. "While all of you were forehead deep in personal drama, some one had to keep an eye out for the potential destruction of human life as we know it."

"Dramatic." Magnus couldn't help but grin.

"Don't endorse this!" Tessa snapped. "Isabelle, what did you see?"

"He's always surrounded by them. Strong ones and a woman. Old, wrinkled. She stands by the door and she never leaves the building," Izzy said.

"Culsu," Magnus and Tessa said together. They exchanged a look.

"You know her?" Izzy asked.

"We had a change encounter several hundred years ago," Magnus explained. He turned to Tessa. "Explains why she was summoned. She is protecting the entrance."

"So she's a gateway demon?" Izzy cut in.

"She won't be the only one," Tessa muttered. "If he's anything like that she-devil, he'll be prepared for anything."

"Lilith died," Izzy drawled.

"Yes, but she didn't exactly expect Simon to be able to turn her to dust either," Magnus pointed out. "How do we move forward?"

Tessa looked at Isabelle. This girl had kept them all in the dark for nearly three months. How had they not noticed that she had gone missing so many times? How had they not noticed the dark circles under her eyes?

Most importantly, how had she survived every encounter with demons that would have made other Shadowhunters weep? Tessa wondered how it had come to this, how she had tried to protect one child so much that she had neglected the other to the point where she knew nothing about Isabelle's activities at all. It made her sick to think that each night when Isabelle went out to stalk Sebastian, she could have easily never come home. And there would have been no one there to protect her, watch over her and guide her.

"We can attack at night. He'll never see us coming," Isabelle proposed.

"Darling, do not fool yourself into thinking that Sebastian doesn't know you've been watching him." Tessa rubbed her temples. "Odds are that he'll have someone following you."

Isabelle looked possessed. "Son of a bit—"

"The best approach is a direct approach," Tessa cut her off. "What's the address? I plan on paying Sebastian a visit."

X

X

X

I get up in the morning, torture a typewriter until it screams, then stop.

-Clarence Budington Kelland

That's how my computer felt this last week. I got tons of writing done, but I spent two days reading over this chapter. I wanted to make sure it sounded perfect. To clear up some things, Tessa calls Jace hers. "He's mine." Not as in, "my son" but "the child I swore to protect. A Herondale, William's last descendant." He's a tangent bond to her past and she does love him unreservedly, and she can't help but love him more than she loves Magnus or Isabelle or Alec and Clary. Something else, I got called mean. That's so sweet of you guys! I know I'm doing my job right when I can get people to feel so strongly about a story and a complete stranger (am I still a stranger? I wonder). Knowing how you feel makes me write better, honestly. And finally, I wrote the second to last chapter. Just so you know. Write me a review and I'll post the next chapter faster. :)

Yours truly,

Chair


	19. Chapter 19

XXX ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO CASSANDRA CLARE XXX

Simon hovered over her shoulder. Isabelle frowned at him. He took a deep breath and said, "Go home, Izzy."

"No."

He turned to Tessa. "Can't you send her home?"

"I agreed to let her come along because she promised to be careful," Tessa said as she stopped directly in front of the building and looked up. Izzy was right, she could have walked around here for weeks without realizing Sebastian had taken over the neighborhood.

"Yeah, well, just because she says she'll be careful doesn't she'll follow through it," he pointed out.

"She's been warned of the repercussions of her actions," Tessa said quietly and by the way Izzy backed down, Simon guessed the cards were in Tessa's hands.

"Shall I knock?" Magnus asked.

"Are you serious?" Izzy demanded.

"Knock the door down," Tessa told him ignoring the girl between them.

Simon rolled his eyes. "I'll lead the way," he sighed.

"I have a sick feeling you've done this before," Isabelle said as Magnus stepped up to the stoop and placed his hand flat against the door.

"You have no idea," Simon muttered as he took his spot directly behind Magnus. They had discovered that while Magnus was powerful enough to blow through walls and destroy magical barriers, Simon was better when it came to direct attacks. He reduced everything to piles of gray ash before anyone realized what he'd done.

"Isabelle," Tessa said softly, drawing Izzy's attention. "No matter what you see, no matter what you hear, I want you to obey Magnus. Don't lose focus, don't doubt what you know. If you get hurt, any scratch, get out of here."

"What are you talking about?" Izzy asked.

"This." Tessa felt the Change come slowly, much harder than any of the others she had done.

Changing, the illusion, was like being bathed in fog.

It crept up her body like a strange vise. Depending on the person she was imitating, her body reacted with a sort of fright and she couldn't help hating herself for this.

His memories hit her hard. For a second she leaned her forehead and hands against the wall, only to notice her hands weren't her own anymore. Large, tanned, and scarred, they were a man's hands. Hands made for killing and used to it.

She lifted one and rubbed it against her face. She felt a rough beard and a hard square jaw. Looking down, the floor seemed several inches farther away. She pushed off the wall, and form somewhere far away in time she remembered a memory not her own.

He'd been hurt. Left bleeding yet determined to survive. He was still a threat. He had leaned against a wall just as she did now and considered what to do.

Gathering her wits, thinking of Jace, she straightened. She had to readjust the jacket over her larger shoulders. The sword at her back was a reminder that if she were really him, he'd show no mercy.

From the corner of her eyes she saw Izzy gasp and stagger back, her mouth hanging open. She reached for her dagger, but Tessa caught her wrist in one massive hand and stopped her. "It's me. Remember that it's me," she said and her voice was deep and beautiful like a fallen angel's. "Don't forget that this is me."

Izzy nodded, but she didn't look convinced. She seemed repulsed by her touch, but before she could argue Magnus took charge. "They are coming. I can feel them, can't you?"

Tess looked back at Izzy. "No matter what you see, stay alive."

X

Jace watched his captors run around as if they were convinced the entire force of the Clave was coming at any minute. Expect how would they know where he was? It wasn't like he had a bond to any of them that could allow them to trek him. Not to a mother or to a wife.

Pulling against the metal bands once more, he looked across the basement. The had gone down several hours ago, according to his calculations. As a demon shut the heavy sliding doors, he caught a glace at the empty hallway outside lined by the wooden crates.

He knew Tessa would be looking for him. He had no doubt of that. He felt it under his skin, as if her determination could reach him even when they were apart. Still, he couldn't tell how long it would be better she came for him and he had no idea what kind of time he had left. When Sebastian had looked at him with such hatred, he had to believe Valentine's son would snap. Sooner rather than later.

Just as he thought about those soulless dark eyes, the doors opened and Sebastian entered. He was dressed in black leather, with weapons strapped to every inch of him. His hair had returned to its blondness.

He looked like Valentine. Handsome, but deadly.

"And now we wait," Sebastian said, checking the sharpness of his dagger against the pad of his thumb. A thin dark line appeared and Jace felt the prickling against him own skin. "It shouldn't be long. They will come for him in force."

His minions bared their fangs, hissing at Jace like he was the evil guy in charge of this particular kidnapping.

He watched Sebastian pick up another six-inch hunting knife, then turn and look at him.

Jace's palms felt clammy.

Sebastian took a step forward. "How did you find her? How did you convince her to help you?"

Jace frowned, about to ask what the hell Sebastian meant when he heard something.

Some kind of rumble. Thunder. A train.

Whatever it was, it was getting louder.

And then he heard an odd twinkling noise, like wind chimes. He glanced across the baseball. On the table where there were weapons and other strange objects laid out, things began to rattle, knocking into one another.

The demons turned to Sebastian for guidance. One of them asked, "What is that?"

Sebastian took a deep breath as the temperature dropped a good twenty degrees.

"Get ready, Sebastian," Jace said with a chuckle as he felt her under his skin.

By now, the sound was a roar. And the doors were shaking so violently, dust from the rafters was falling, a soft snow that clouded the air.

Demons growled, baring their teeth at the ceiling and at the door.

It splintered apart, bending iron and wood, blown open by a cold blast of fury. The building seemed to sway under the force of the impact.

Jace wasn't sure he believed his eyes as he caught glance of the man at the doorway. The air around that body seemed warped by menace and a promise of death. Jace felt his eyes on him, and then a booming roar that made his ears ache.

Jace froze.

The man standing there was like a mountain. Shoulders so broad that they filled the doorway. He was dressed entirely in black, yet the blood of demons already dripped from him.

He had eyes that burned like blue fire. His jaw, an uncompromising square, was set and his teeth were bared.

This was the Valentine Jace feared even in his most peaceful moments.

In a movement so fast that even his angel eyes couldn't track, Valentine went at the demons, grabbing one and hammering him into a stone wall. Another jumped at him, nailing him with an upper cut to the jaw. The two battered and rammed and hit each other, slamming into walks, knocking out bricks and crates. In spite of the weapons Valentine had strapped to him, they stuck to punches, their faces harsh, their lips peeled back, their tremendous bodies doing damage to one another.

He didn't want to watch, but he couldn't turn away.

The demon gave out and another took his place, branding a knife and launched himself at Valentine's back. With a vicious twist, Valentine peeled the creature off of him and pitched it into the air. Its body flew across the space to the other end of the room, landing in a pile of arms and legs.

Valentine now turned to Sebastian, his eyes a dark blue color that seemed to weight down Sebastian so hard that the half-demon could do nothing but stare in shock.

"Father."

Two demons appeared out of nowhere, and Valentine grabbed one by the throat, twisting its neck until a loud crack let the demon in a heap. The other backed away with a growl before running out of the room.

"Sebastian."

That voice brought back to life all of Jace's nightmares. It was the voice of his childhood, of the monster that had created him and the monster that still made him who he was.

"Father, you are dead," Sebastian said as he took a step backward. "The Angel…"

"You thought I wouldn't come back for you?" Valentine asked and there was no love in his voice. "You thought I wouldn't want to see what you have become?"

Sebastian pointed at Jace. "Look what I've done! I've corrupted him!"

Valentine's eyes hardened. "Corrupted him? He has angel blood. He cannot be corrupted."

"I tied his life force to mine. They will never—"

"You disgust me," Valentine said. He took a step forward and Jace was surprised that Valentine was taller than Sebastian. "You and your demon blood corrupted everything I ever wanted."

Sebastian's eyes were large as saucers. "Father, you wanted me. You wanted me to bend the Shadowhunters to your power."

"And then I wanted him to kill you. All this time I just wanted him to kill you," Valentine said and his words were so heavy and so hateful that even Sebastian seemed shocked. He took several steps back.

"You don't mean it." Sebastian was shaking his head, his white blond hair brushing against his cheeks.

"You are impure. You are a freak. You are a mistake I regret every day," Valentine said. He took another step towards Sebastian and the boy stumbled back. He ran into the table where the Book of the White lay open. "You tainted me blood line, you nearly killed my daughter, and you proved yourself worthless to me."

"I'm not worthless!" Sebastian shouted back at him.

"Worthless just like your demon mother," Valentine growled and Sebastian snapped. He raised the dagger in his hand and launched at Valentine.

Jace heard the tear of leather and a soft gasp come from Valentine, but the man was larger than Sebastian and he pushed Sebastian away and grabbed him by the neck and flung him nearly all the way across the room. Sebastian's body made a sick, breaking noise as he lay slumped on the floor.

Valentine turned around to go back to Jace, but fell on one knee.

It was the first time that Jace noticed that there was something wrong with this man. He watched as Valentine gained his feet again, shaking his head slightly. His hair looked a different color, darker.

He staggered a little as he pulled a seraph blade from his back and muttered, "_Castiel_." The blade came alive and Jace thought that this was the worse time and place to die. Without Alec and Izzy, without Tessa…without Clary.

The blade came swinging down and cut straight through the metal bands that held his wrists in place. He fell forward, already on his feet, ready to fight.

He spun to face Valentine, only to find Tessa on her knees on the floor looking pale. "Grab the Book," she ordered from between gritted teeth. She was trying to stand up and Jace hurried to help her, but she growled, "Now!"

He hurried, grabbing the old dome and holding it to his chest as he looked over his shoulder to where Sebastian had been thrown.

He was no longer there.

"Tessa!" Magnus came running in, not sparring a look to any of the demons laying dead around them or to Jace himself as he fell to his knees by Tessa. "Darling?"

"Get him back to the Institute. He has the Book," she said as she pressed her hands hard to the side of her rib cage.

"Tessa!" Simon appeared, eyes wide. He looked sick to his stomach when he caught sight of her. "You're hurt."

"She's hurt?" Isabelle came running in after Simon.

Jace took a step closer, but Tessa shook her head. "Magnus, take him home. Lock the Book up and make sure he's alright."

"What about you?" Jace asked. His throat felt raw. He realized that he was still scared, now for her instead of her.

"Simon will take me home," she said as she beckoned the vampire close and put some of her weight on him. Simon didn't look particular comfortable, but he held her tight as she pushed her hair away from her eyes. She left a smudge of blood across her forehead and Simon groaned. "Think of it as oil."

"Can't," he grumbled. "Smells like blood."

"I'll go with them," Izzy said to Magnus. "Just get Jace back to the Institute and we'll take care of her."

"I want to stay with you," Jace told her.

"And I want you safe. Go back to Maryse and tell her what happened," Tessa replied. She managed a weak smile. "I'll come as soon as I'm patched up."

Magnus closed one hand around Jace's bicep. "Let's go."

Jace shook him free and walked up close to Tessa. He wanted to hug her, but she didn't look like she could take it. "Why can't you come with us?"

"I can't stand the Silent Brothers," she muttered under her breath. "Go, Jace."

Magnus tugged again and this time Jace let himself be moved. "Just—get well."

He was gone with Magnus a second later.

Izzy turned to Tessa with a frown. She got close to Tessa, looking at the hand Tessa had pressed to her wound. There was a lot of blood seeping out. "It's bad, Tessa. Very bad."

"Bad," Tessa whispered. "Whatever happens, just don't let me die. Alright? Contrary to popular belief I can die and I don't want to die."

"I won't let you die," Izzy said although she was staring at that wound with wide, unsure eyes. "What do I do?"

"Your steele."

"Tessa, you are a warlock. It won't work!"

Tessa heaved a deep breath. "Just trust me. Please, Izzy, just trust me."

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Oh, labor of love. Review.


	20. Chapter 20

XXX ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO CASSANDRA CLARE XXX

"So he's gone again?" Maryse asked as Jace wrapped up the story, from when he'd been kidnapped to when Tessa had transformed into Valentine and saved him.

"Yeah. I guess he is," Jace replied as he looked down at his fingers, wrapped around Clary's. "We'll catch up to him, don't worry.  
"He's not the one I'm worried about," she whispered back as she tightened the grip.

"And the Book?" Maryse was looking at the book on her coffee table. No one had touched it since Jace had first set it down.

"I don't think we should keep it," Jace muttered. "I think we better—"

_Return it to us. _The voice in their heads made them turn around to the doorway, where two Silent Brothers stood. One, Brother Zachariah, was looking at Magnus with a frown Jace would have qualified as worried. The other, Brother Quartus, was a figure they seldom saw outside of the Silent City.

Together, with their heavy hooded robes and their white, scarred skins, they made an imposing presence that left the room quiet.

Quartus beckoned for the Book. _We are duty bound to protect it. _

"Not before I find the binding spell," Magnus said stepping in front of the Book.

_That is also our responsibility,_ Zachariah took a step forward. Jace realized that he was as tall as Magnus. He raised on hand, those dark eyes locked with Magnus'. _The Book._

"Any other day, you know I would give it to you," Magnus said. "But I can do this better than you."

_You lost the Book to the half-demon once, warlock. _Quartus didn't look happy to be defied.

"I will return it to you," Magnus promised, "after I find that spell that can safely bond Jace to one an anchor."

_You will need our help. And the Iron Sisters,_ Zachariah nodded. _But the boy should rest and the preparations must be done. Who will be his bonded?_

"What is the bond like?" Clary asked.

_It is indelible and indescribable. It is a bond with no beginning or end. It is a strengthening of the soul, a literal anchor that holds a piece of you to this world, _Zachariah answered.

"Like a _parabatai_ or a marriage ceremony?" Clary asked.

_In neither of those do you trust your bonded so much that you are willing to let your soul be shared with one outside of your body. _Quartus folded his arms. _Be careful with who you trust._

Jace nodded as he stood. "How long do I have?"

_Two days? _

"Of course, it's not like it's my whole life depending on this," Jace growled.

"Jace," Maryse said with a clipped tone, "maybe you should just go sleep on it."

He looked at Clary, who looked back at him with a weak smile. "Come on. We can talk about it in the morning."

Before he went, Jace turned to Magnus. "You'll check on her?"

"As soon as I'm done here. Good to bed, Jace and think about it carefully."

Jace walked out of the room with Clary tucked under his arm. He had his lips pressed to her hair and his eyes were closed. Everyone else filed out after him, quietly, pensively until finally the only two left were Magnus and one Silent Brother.

"Zachariah," Magnus said quietly after the door closed.

The creature, no longer man nor a common Shadowhunter, turned those blank, emotionless eyes to him. It was a face that Magnus considered foreign and familiar at the same time, a face he often dreamed about and a face that haunted him. After all these years, he still looked like a young man.

His vows to the Silent Brothers had been different, less restrictive, yet his sacrifices had been far greater than any of the others. His lips might not have been sewed shut, but it had been a long and painful century since he'd spoken his last words. He lived in a daze, Magnus was certain, knowing that he could never again join the world of the living.

_Magnus?_

"Pardon me, I was momentarily distracted," Magnus muttered as he shook his head slightly. "I don't think you should be there when Sisters and the Brothers attempt to form Jace's bond."

_I've waited a long time to see this, Magnus. It's my responsibility to the boy_. The Brother stood his ground, more devoted to this goal than any of the others.

"Zachariah, I don't Jace will choose Maryse as his anchor," Magnus said quietly. The goal was to find Jace an anchor, another soul to bond with his and to keep him safe. Every creature had one. A bond so foreign it defied explanation.

_Clary?_

It would have made sense to pick Clary. She was his soul mate, the very love of his life. They would be together for as long as their souls lived.

"I think he'll choose Tessa."

Zachariah stared at him. _Tessa?_

Magnus nodded. "She's been here, in New York and at the Institute for a while. She saved him tonight."

The first reaction that Magnus got out of Zachariah was a long, deep breath. _Was she harmed?_

"Nothing that can't be fixed with sleep and a cup of tea," Magnus answered. He realized that he could potentially be lying, but he knew Tessa and she was a fighter. She would let a wound deprive her of a few more years caring for Jace.

_Does he know who she is? _It was hard to tell what he sounded like. The Brothers had nearly no expression. _Has she told him about me?_

"No. She hasn't told them, any of them," Magnus clarified. "He's close to her, though, and she adores him. She can give him something neither Maryse nor Clary can."

_What?_

"Ties to the past," Magnus replied. "A insight into the Herondales."

_A mother._

"That's Maryse's job. Tessa wouldn't want it. Regardless, Zachariah, he will choose her and she will say yes," Magnus told him.

_Than you are right, _Zachariah nodded, _I shouldn't be there. _

Magnus nodded his agreement and shrugged. "I'm sorry. I'm sure you wish you could help Jace through this."

_I can't give him what Tessa can._

"Not as a Silent Brother, you can't." Magnus cleared his throat. He felt as if he might cry for Zachariah as he watched those eyes close and the brother heave a breath.

_Will you continue to watch over her? Protect her for me? _

"Always."

_Then I take my leave, Magnus. Mizpah, _Zachariah turned, drawing his hood even closer over his eyes. He made for the door but stopped. _I cannot bear to lose her. She's the only thing that keeps me going._

He was out of the room and the door was closed before Magnus could reply. Instead, he just stood there and considered what would have happened if Zachariah had lost Tessa instead of Tessa losing Zachariah. How different would their world have been?

The church cat rubbed up against Magnus' legs, leaving a trace of fur behind. The warlock picked him up, cradling him to his chest. "I know, Church. I know."

There was no point crying over spilled milk.

X

Tessa saw him from nearly a block away, a hooded figure sitting on the steps of her building. She hurried. "Jace, what are you doing?"

He looked up. In the gloom of the early evening, the only thing she could see were his bright yellow eyes. "I needed to see you. You didn't come this morning and I was worried. What happened with your wound?"

Tessa shrugged. "Isabelle and Simon patched me up. By the time Magnus got here, I was no longer at Death's door step."

"You almost died?" He shrieked.

"Thank goodness it was just almost instead of dead, dead," she sighed. He looked horribly pale and Tessa waved his worries off. "It takes more than a collapsed lung and several pints of blood loss to kill me. You don't have to worry about it. How are you?"

She swept him with another look. He didn't look injured, at least there wasn't blood on his clothes. She sighed and sat down next to him, observing the people hurrying past by.

"I need to ask you a question."

"Alright."

Jace took a deep breath. He did that often when he was at the crosshairs of a difficult thought. "Will Clary hate me if I kill Jonathan?"

Across the street a chestnut seller was closing down his stand for the night. He waved at her and Tessa smiled back. She took her time with the question.

Would Clary hate Jace for killing her brother?

"Will practically killed Nate," she whispered to herself. "Maybe I killed Nate."

"Who's Nate?"

Tessa blinked. "Huh?"

"Who is Nate?" He was looking at her with those same inquisitive eyes as Will.

Tessa wondered what great evils would sprout from this very moment if she did not answer him honestly. "He was my brother. Nathaniel Gray. He was an ally of Axel Mortmain."

"The Magister of the Clockwork Army?" Jace asked surprised.

She was silently thankful that he knew about the war, which ultimately meant she could let him think whatever he wanted without starting at the very beginning. Without giving away all her secrets.

"Tess, if you don't want to talk about it—" he took a breath. She glanced at her profile, at her frown and the down turned sweep of her lips. She didn't look like the powerhouse she was. "I shouldn't be pressuring you to tell me things. You've done enough for—"

"Some day you'll probably end up face to face with Jonathan again, Jace. And if you have to make the decision to kill him, you'll probably think about Clary. About her brother. You'll weigh all his deeds and you will pick the right decision."

Tessa reached for one of his hands and wrapped her fingers around his.

"I think that Clary believes that somewhere inside of him, he's actually a good person," Jace told her to fill in the silence between them.

"Some people are roped into evil by their own curiousity and folly. Others are born evil, so dark that there's no hope."

"Jonathan was born evil." He shook his head. "I wonder if he'd had demon blood but been raised by anyone other than Valentine is he'd be a better person now. I doubt it."

Nate hadn't been born evil. Nate had been such a sweet boy, so misguided at the same time. She could have saved him. Could have.

"Your children might ask you in future about their mother. About her family, her father and mother… if she had siblings. They'll wonder if there's a void some where in your story. If there's something you are keeping from them. You might choose to erase Jonathan from your lives, Jace. Make his entire existence obsolete. His memory will simply fade, but then no one would learn from his mistakes or that of his father. History may repeat itself, the same errors being made for no good reason aside that they had no right and wrong example.

"Or you might let Jonathan live on in their memories, a presence in their thoughts of a creature so lost and perverted that he endangered all of ours lives. This world may not be entirely good, Jace, but we need to remind our children that we have a chance to make it so by choice."

"You are saying I should let him live."

"I'm saying don't kill him entirely."

_Not like I did to Nate. We could have avoided so much if we had just remembered Nate,_ she thought to herself. They would have seen the signs in Valentine. Even as absentee as she had been, she would have noticed the rottenness growing inside of Valentine and she would have done whatever she could to have fixed him.

Instead, she'd kept her distance until Valentine had grown so powerful and so perverse that she hadn't even known the depths of his actions. He'd nearly destroyed the Clave, driving wedges of doubt in their brotherhood.

Where would they have been now if she'd been able to save Valentine from himself?

"_C'est la vie,"_ Jace said and she jumped a little. She looked at him and let out a nervous laugh. "What?"

"I was about to say just that," she told him with a sad grin. She shrugged. "We can't fix the past, darling, but we can certainly aim for a better future."

He nodded in understanding. Already she could feel the change in him, the maturity and the solidity of his soul. "Tess, can I ask a favor?"

She liked it that he called her by that name. "Of course."

Jace rubbed a fist over his eyes. "Could you…."

"Why do you want to see Valentine?" She didn't need him to finish his sentence to know exactly where he was going.

"I want to say something to him," Jace said simply.

She stood up, pulling her keys from her pocket and turning to the lock. "We'll have to do it upstairs."

He followed her closely as she waited for the elevator. He didn't speak a single word as they made their way up. When she opened the apartment door and showed him in, he sat down immediately, elbows on his knees. He looked up at her.

With a reluctant exhale she recalled her memories of Valentine. They came easily this time, unlike the first time. She was ready for his memories to enter her mind, his careful precision and his mannerism. Her clothes had morphed into his, an expensive black suit and polished shoes.

What she hated most about him were those feelings that he had towards Jace. The cold calculation and the disturbing emotions that paralleled affection. He truly had, in his own sick way, loved Jace.

She caught sight of him in the mirror, so tall and large. His white blond hair was his crowning glory. He might have been insane, but he had also been so beautiful. Those eyes, cerulean blue, were mesmerizing.

She turned to Jace, only to see his face in that mask of…blankness. He might have looked emotionless, but she could feel the fear, the hatred, and also the affection that he felt towards the man that had defined his childhood. He was pale, shaking a little.

"He's dead, Jace," she said but she sounded like Valentine.

He nodded slowly. "I know you're dead." He cleared his throat. "I know he's dead."

He stood up. He wasn't nearly as tall as Valentine, so Tessa had to look down to see into his eyes. The conscious inside of her, the man, smiled at the son he recognized. She kept her face an impassive mask.

"I am not like you," Jace said softly as he looked into Valentine's eyes and studied his face. "Clary is nothing like you either. We are good people. We are going to find Sebastian and we are going to do the right thing. And everything you did, all the things you messed up, I'm going to fix."

Tessa nodded, warmed deep down by the conviction in his voice.

"I'm not your son," he said forcefully and she realized this was the hardest part for him. "I'm not."

She nodded again.

"And my name is Jace Herondale."

The illusion slipped away in rush, the shock of hearing him say his own name so great that she could not control herself. Valentine was gone between breaths and when she was completely free of him, Jace rushed at her so fast that Tessa had no time to raise her arms.

She was engulfed in his hug, his head buried on the curve of her neck and she was certain that she felt tears against her skin. She wrapped her arms around his waist, held him tight. She kissed his hair, closed her eyes and sent thanks to all deities looking after this child.

"I'm Stephen's son. I'm a Herondale," he was whispering under his breath against her skin.

She tightened her arms even more. "I know," she told him.

"Tess?"

"Yes, darling?"

"Will you be my bonded?"

In a lost for words, in utter shock, Tessa barely realized that there were tears sliding down her face. She didn't want him to see her crying; she reserved those tears for her bedroom where no one could see.

He probably wouldn't understand the feelings that assaulted her. After nearly one century and a half she had another Herondale before her giving her the most wonderful gift of unconditional love. Will had trusted her in the same way, without doubt, without guile.

"Are you certain of this?"

"I trust you," he replied without hesitance.

"You don't know everything about me."

Jace shook his head. "I know what matters. And how bad could it possibly be?"

"I have skeletons in my closet."

"And I kissed the girl who was supposedly my sisters. We are all a little twisted, Tess." He looked her in the eyes. She knew nothing she said would change his mind so she nodded. Jace's face split into a bright smile. "Thank you."

"You can always count on me." And she meant it far more than he could understand.

X

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First of all, I wanted to ask if you keep up with Ms. Clare's Tumblr account. In a recent question, a reader asked what Emma's (the newest character from The Dark Artifices) last name is. The answer was "Carstairs". Interpret that as you will, but I can promise you that there isn't a lot of chapters left to go. Maybe two. I wanted to rally and finish this off in a good note. So please review! Please. Please. Please. It would be lovely to get some Valentine's Day love.

Yours truly,

Chair


	21. Chapter 21

XXX ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO CASSANDRA CLARE XXX

She hated the Silent City.

Once, a long time ago, she had thought it was a beautiful place, enchanting like nothing else. The arches, the ceiling, the tombs of fallen Shadowhunters had seemed romantic to her, a reminder of everlasting strength of Nephilim.

Now, it reminded her of…silence.

Standing in the main chamber, under the arches made from the ashes of fallen Shadowhunters, Tessa watched several Silent Brothers and a handful of Iron Sisters walk around in a distinct pattern. Their hoods were drawn over their faces, and their hems whispered as they dragged on the floor. They moved like grey ballerinas, floating instead of walking.

Ghosts of the people that had once been.

"You look pale," Clary whispered. She didn't look much better herself. When Tessa had arrived at the Institute she had found Clary clutching Jace's hand tightly. She looked like she hadn't slept in days.

"I feel surrounded by the living dead," Tessa responded as she looked around. Magnus was no here yet, but he'd been granted the opportunity by the Brothers. There were other Shadowhunters though, including Neal Bloodgood, the scion of the powerful and ancient Bloodgood family. He had smiled when Tessa had walked into the room and had greeted her warmly when they'd touched cheeks. He was there in the name of the Consul, to witness the ritual and to report back to Alicante.

He was one of the few of the new generation that she actually liked.

_Are you ready, Tessa Gray?_ She turned to look at the familiar face of Brother Enoch. He held out one hand, which she took. _This way._

He led her up to the altar where the Soul Sword has displayed. The ritual did not call for angelic weapons, yet it seemed appropriate considering the blood that ran through Jace's veins.

Jace looked at her as she approached and winced. She tried to offer him some reassurance, but she was equally in the dark about this as he was. Enoch let go of her hand and she approached Jace. "You can change your mind, you know. Pick another."

"You," he sighed. "It has to be you. I just know it. What do you think they are gonna make us do?"

"I don't know, but I draw the line at kicking kittens and puppies," she told him.

Jace grinned. "You have a sense of humor, Tessa Gray. I'm surprised."

"You do not have a monopoly on absurdity, you know."

Jace just grinned and both of them turned to the Shadowhunter behind the altar.

She never seized to be amazed by the Iron Sisters. They were tall and strong and beautiful in an eerie sort of way. Today, their hoods were pulled over their faces so she could not see the runes etched into their faces, but she knew they were there. Runes for strength and perseverance.

"Won't the sword harm you?" Jace asked in a whisper and Tessa realized that he had his eyes glued to the blade resting on the marble.

"No more than it will harm you," she answered as Enoch set his hands on the hilt of the sword.

_You must understand what we ask of you_.

Tessa looked behind her at the people there to witness. Maryse, Alec, Isabelle and Clarissa. Neal Bloodgood, looking concerned but poised. She doubted anyone understood this and she herself felt a little uncertain of what would follow. Although Magnus had told her, it seemed as if she was going into this blind.

She turned back to Jace, to those yellow eyes. "What do you ask for?"

_Unreserved commitment. A promised, sworn fealty, to protect always, to guard lovingly, to care for and guide this child of the Clave,_ Enoch said.

To do for Jace what she had done for those she'd loved so long ago. "I am willing and able," she told them both.

"And we will aid her in any capacity," Magnus' strong voice said from behind her and Tessa heaved a sigh of relief.

She glanced at him, a reassuring presence. Knowing that he understood the grandiosity of the moment better than most, she smiled at him. "You've made it."

"It is an honor to be here."

_Lay your hands upon the Sword and may your souls be kindled together._

Tessa watched Jace reached for the blade first, fearless as always. He wrapped one hand around the blade, holding it so tightly that blood dripped onto the altar. Tessa watched for barely a moment before she did the same. The blade cut through her skin, a heat almost unbearable.

Enoch spoke into her mind but she couldn't understand the particular words. They were long and foreign and ancient. They were words of power long lost to warlocks and Shadowhunters that it was only thanks to the Book of the White that this could be accomplished.

Somewhere deep inside a pain so great, so terrible, gnawed at her conscious. She realized it was her own soul, for so long horribly alone even when surrounded by people. In her mind's eye, she saw it like a grey fog, disorderly and cold.

It hadn't been truly happy in a very long time.

And then she felt a change. A brightening light, almost blinding. It glowed yellow in the distance, a light at the end of the tunnel. Visions flashed across her mind, of a childhood, of a boy and his father, of a first and only love, of sadness and fear. She saw it all and understood it all.

Jace's soul made hers react in a way she hadn't thought possible. She ached to relieve his worries, to guard him from all evil and to offer him a haven in her arms. She hadn't felt this strongly about another since…

A beloved voice sounded in her ear. _Never trust a duck._

Her soul sang. And then another soft, musical voice. _You are home for me now._

Jace's soul kept coming closer, his brightness chasing the fog off. His presence soothed her and she reached for him, giving him as much of her self as she could. Joy welled, then swelled even higher. The walls of her inner temple shattered.

In the second since their souls touched, she was shaken, rocked to her core by a tempest of emotions. Need, lost, fear, and hope; those were easily identified. Other tender feelings, darker, more turbulent, much harder to define, had swelled the tumult to an ungovernable tide that had scored and ripped its way through her and him.

Now, in the aftermath, she felt not destroyed, but free, as if everything that had defined her and driven her now met a culminating point at the sheer pleasure at the knowledge of Jace's safety. She felt swept from her foundations and the bricks left scattered by the surprise of their collision.

And in one breath, the moment souls touched, hers turning blue and his still bright gold, those bricks began to reclaim their shape. She was rebuilding the temple, but this time the walls were meant to protect something much more powerful than her own heart and memories. It was solid, built to last because the idol that now rested inside its walls showed her trust in the clarity of his eyes.

_Now at last you are free, and I can finally tell you, without fear of danger to you, all that I feel in my heart. _Will had once said those words to her and now she said them to Jace. _You are a part of my existence, part of myself._

Their souls entwined, their bond made stronger by the centuries worth of love and devotion she had for him and those who'd come before him. She could feel his breathing inside of her, his heartbeat, his hopes. For once he felt safe and she knew that part of that was because he had complete trust in her.

He was happy and so was she and—

The crash back to consciousness was bittersweet. Their souls parted, but their essences remained together and always would for as long as they both lived. The brightness receded, and Tessa realized that she was on her knees, her hand still deeply sliced by the Soul Sword. There was a pool of blood, hers and Jace's, on the altar and it was hard to focus when with the pain.

He was pale, his blond hair falling over his eyes. He was breathing heavy too, but he looked…happy.

A hand, with bright red nail polish, closed over hers and gently opened her fingers one by one. The Sword had cut through some tendons so she couldn't flex her fingers. An arm wrapped around her waist and dragged her to her feet. She saw Clary running up the stairs to embrace Jace.

Tessa turned to Magnus, glad that he wrapped her up in his arms. "It's fine now," he whispered to her. "He will be alright. He'll be safe. Thanks to you."

"I think Will would be very pleased about this," she whispered.

"He'd choreograph a little jig, I'm sure," Magnus told her.

"Good. That's very good," she whispered before she passed out in his arms.

X

The first face she saw was Neal Bloodgood's.

It hovered just above hers, with that kind smile. He was sitting on the edge of her infirmary bed, a book in hand. "How do you feel?"

"Alive. Jace?"

His smiled widened. "Alive," he reached for a glass of water by her bedside. "Enoch thinks that the bond drained a lot of your energy. You were under the spell for nearly three hours."

"Three hours? It was barely a minute," she coughed as she sat up.

"Three hours, Tessa." He shrugged. "You worried me for a moment."

She shook her shoulders. "Nothing that you have to worry about. I feel fine."

"That's good because—" there was a burst of laughter just outside the infirmary doors and Tessa grinned at the expression on Neal's face, "she's coming to visit you."

The door burst open and a whirlwind of dark hair and pink polka-dots burst into the room with a large bouquet of pink roses. "Tessa! Daddy said you'd be here so Mummy took me to the florist and we bought you some flowers. How are you feeling?"

Looking at the round face of Neal's daughter, Tessa couldn't help but smile. "I'm feeling wonderful, thank you. How are you, sweetling?"

She climbed up on Tessa's bed, offering her the bouquet with a large smile. "Fantastic. We are going the Museum this afternoon and later we get to go to the botanical gardens."

"Why don't you run to your room for a moment and grab the origami flowers you made last night? We'll show them to Tessa," Neal told her and the child jumped and ran back out the door.

Tessa looked back at him. "Why are you really here?"

Neal rolled his eyes. "The Clave has developed an interest in a particular child. One I thought you'd want to hear about from me."

Tessa sighed. "I cannot handle another Clave intervention at this moment, Neal."

"I don't think we should have to deal with the Clave at anytime," Magnus said as he strolled into the infirmary.

Neal rolled his eyes. "You know it cannot be helped."

"I also know that when you show up, you have some interest in it," Tessa told him. "Last time it was Jessamine's electrum parasol."

"_That_ is a collectable!" Neal muttered. "I was only here to watch the ritual, but I thought that as a friend I should warn you."

"Who is it?" Tessa asked with a sigh. Curiosity did win out in the end.

"Emma Carstairs."

Magnus groaned and Tessa sunk back to the bed. She could see those blond curls, that full grin and a naturally difficult personality. "Of course."

"Just a…heads up."

"Look, I found it!" Neal's little darling ran back into the room with a bouquet of origami flowers in her hand. There was a particularly big one, with glitter everywhere. She stopped when she saw Magnus, her eyes widening as she looked him up and down. "You look beautiful!"

"Thank you." Magnus beamed. He ran his hands down the front of his rainbow, pleather suit. "Is this her, Neal?"

"Emma Carstairs?" Neal chuckled. "No, this is my daughter. Amanda."

"Pleasure to meet you, sir," she said as she plucked one of the largest, brightest paper flowers from her bouquet and holding it out to him. It was the prettiest, with the most glitter and a velvet ribbon stem. He was surprised by her choice. "I love your suit."

"Well, thank you. I can find something like it in your size," he said as he did a little twirl for her.

Her little mouth dropped open. She looked as if Christmas had arrived early. "Really?"

"No," Neal said as he stood up and swept her up into his arms. He settled her on his hip, smiling down at her. "I rather you don't walk around resembling a rainbow."

"But—"

"We could go by Saint Patrick's Cathedral. You love that one," Neal cut in.

Her eyes flashed with glee and she clapped her hands. "Now?"

Neal set her on her feet and nodded. "Now."

She was a little pink blur as she grabbed hold of Tessa and Magnus' hand and held them tight. Her touch felt like lighting, setting invisible fire to Tessa's skin as she jumped up and down. Tessa felt breathless. Like she had during the bonding, yet this was different. It was something she couldn't place.

Images flashed before her eyes; things she couldn't truly see, but that she felt.

"Won't you come along?" Amanda asked enthusiastically.

"She loves churches. Last year Valeria and I took her to every single in Madrid," Neal explained. "Once we go home, we are thinking about a trip to Rome. Tons of churches there."

She shook her head, to both clear the shock of Amanda's touch and to find an answer. "I think I'll sit this one out."

"Me too," Magnus whispered and Tessa noticed that he was looking at the child with darkened eyes.

"I guess it's just us," Neal told her. He saluted Tessa and Magnus with a sharp nod. "Mizpah to both of you. May your paths be clear."

As Neal Bloodgood walked away with his skipping daughter holding on to his hand, both Tessa and Magnus turned to stare at each other. The little girl, with straight black hair was talking a mile a minute as she asked questions about the cathedral and all the other churches.

"Did you feel that too?" Magnus asked quietly.

Tessa nodded. "And the Herondales thought they were cursed…"

"Pity." Magnus touched the flower now decorating his lapel. "I very much liked her."

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Home stretch! Second to last! Almost there. Read and review please.

-Chair


	22. Chapter 22

XXX ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO CASSANDRA CLARE XXX

"Where are we?" Jace asked immediately after regaining his feet. Tessa was just a few feet away, standing in the middle of a rose garden. He wanted to point out that she had crushed several beautiful blooms, but her eyes were far away and he doubted she could really hear him.

"We are in Idris," Tessa answered as she spun around in a circle. She looked to the east and raised a finger. "The towers."

Jace looked. Sure enough, he could see the towers in the distance. He could just barely see them in the setting sun. Why had Tessa brought them here?

He'd been surprised when she'd appeared at the Institute early in the afternoon. Even more surprised when she'd asked him if he wanted to go on a fieldtrip. He'd been torn momentarily between her and Clary, yet he could see Tessa's expectations and Clary had waved him off with a "Have fun." His Clary understood that there was something strange between him and Tessa now, an invisible chain that connected them and grounded them.

"Why are we here?" He asked as she began to walk towards a hill in the distance. He could see the top of a chimney.

"Do you still want to know who I am?" She asked as she looked over her shoulder.

He nearly tripped over his own feet. "Now?"

"We can wait until you are thirty, if you want," she said as she stopped. "I like the idea of that. Thirty is a solid age. When I was thirty, the world was a fantastic place."

"When you were thirty, people still died of polio." Jace grabbed her hand and tugged. "Now."

Tessa chuckled and resumed walking. She looked around the natural wilderness. It reminded her of the Devonshire. Jagged rocky hills covered in purple heather for as far as the eye could see. The wind blew viciously, and the sky was dark and beautiful.

Out here her family history was still strong. "Have you been here before?"

"It's familiar, but the Wayland House was on the other side of the city and I wasn't allowed out often," Jace told her. They were nearing the top of the hill and Tessa looked a little tired and her hand was resting over the place where her wound had been, but she still took long strides. "You can complain, you know. Admit to pain."

"The only pain I feel is over the breakfast Magnus made me consume," she replied. "I remember to this very day the first time I ever saw Idris. It was like a dream. Like Camelot."

Jace watched her face closely. Pale and sweaty. Wisps of her dark hair clung to her forehead. She was wearing jeans, so unfamiliar, and polished boots and a white jacket. She looked nothing like the woman who'd saved him from Valentine.

"Who taught you how to fight?"

"Gideon and Gabriel Lightwood. The Clave ordered it." She scratched the back of her neck. "I'm told I have a talent for knives."

"What about this place? Did Will bring you here?" Jace asked.

"Yes," she answered. "And Jem. We were looking for Mortimer. It was how the Book of the White got back to Idris in the first place. I was sorry to hear about Ragnor Fell."

"Are we going to Herondale House?" Jace asked.

They reached the top of the hill and looked down at the manor that stretched across a moor. "No, although there is one and I'm certain Imogen would have wanted you to have it."

"We didn't leave on good terms," Jace pointed out.

"Yes, well, every family has bad blood. She could have killed you, instead she did die to save you, didn't she?" Tessa wondered out loud. "I think that means more than any sarcastic commentary you might have exchanged."

Jace looked away. "So what is this house?"

"Starkweather Manor," Tessa said as she began to walk down the hill. "These are the Starkweather lands. Bloodgood House is to the northwest and the Wolverston's are to the north."

"The Two Barriers," Jace said with a chuckle.

"You know the story?" They had reached a cobble stone road that led to the front of the massive manor.

"The two families set to protect the borders," Jace said. "Everyone knows that story."

Tessa nodded. "Good. What about the Starkweathers?"

"I thought the family name was dead. Wasn't there a crazy one? He was the director of some Institute," Jace said as they crossed past the gatehouse.

"The York Institute," Tessa answered tightly. "He did go a bit mad in his late age."

"That doesn't explain why we are here, Tess," Jace said as they cut through a grassy lawn and went straight to the front door. The knocker was in the shape of a thunderbolt.

"Of course it does," she answered. "Everything relates straight back to the Starkweathers."

She pulled from her pocket an old, heavy key. Setting it to the lock, she flinched when the hinges creaked. When the door opened, Jace expected cobwebs and dust over everything. Instead, the place was not just clean but polished; he smelled the lemony scent of beeswax.

Looking around, eyes widening, he drew a long breath. "Tess…" The foyer was an exhibition of linen-fold paneling and the upper plaster was filled with paintings and portraits in ornately carved gilded frames. There were large, white roses on the central round table.

The floor depicted a mosaic thunderbolt.

"This way," she called out as she led to a wide staircase with carvings decorating the balustrade and newel posts that led upward from the hall. The floors were polished marble covered with jewel-toned Oriental rugs. He couldn't help but stare at all the things they passed on the way up to the stairs. When they reached the main landing, Tessa waved towards a darkened gallery. The witch lights on the wall flared to life.

There were thunderbolts everywhere he looked. It was a repeating motif, embroidered on pillows, displayed on granite medallions, and on the background of paintings. Thunderbolts were carved on the shining surfaces on old suits of armor and were carved on the legs of various chairs.

Who ever had lived here had a certain fetish for them.

And a serious bank account to support the lavishness of the estate.

They finally came to a stop before a set of doors.

"Everything relates back to the Starkweathers?" Jace repeated as he stared at Tessa's face.

She sighed, on hand resting on the doorknob. "Are you sure you want to do this? You might not like some of the things you see."

What could he possibility find out about her now that would change his entire perspective of her? She had saved him, made him whole again so that he could be some thing other than Valentine's puppet. She had showed him who he really was, or a least who he could be.

That invisible chain that wrapped around the two of them would never grow weak and each day that passed he felt more in touch with her.

"Is that what's behind the door?"

Tessa nodded. "It will explain everything about me. My birth, my life, my family and yours. I'm indebted to your family, Jace, in a way that you can't even imagine."

"Open the door," he said quietly and for a moment Tessa just stared at him. Slowly, she turned the handle and pushed the door open, letting him look straight into and across the room at the painting that had been commissioned in honor of her second anniversary.

If a picture was worth a thousand words, than that painting was a novel work of everything had once between and the woman she was now. It struck Jace speechless and senseless, by her smile, by that blatant happiness that radiated from her face and the face of the man whose arms were wrapped tightly around her. His smile was equally blinding, as if he could not think of anywhere he'd rather be than with Tessa.

Jace turned Tessa, to see her lean against the doorway with a ruthful smile as she looked straight at him. "Don't look so surprised, Jace," she chuckled, "you'd be amazed, by the things you don't know."

THE END.

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No tale tells all.


	23. Chapter 23

**_XXX ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO CASSANDRA CLAIRE XXX_**

For Sweet William, who deserved his happy ending. For Tessa, who gave it to him. And for Jem, who we know will have his.

_Epilogue_

If there was ever a reason for Theresa Herondale to run, it was the look on her great-great-grandson's face as he spun back towards that painting.

She threw a glance at the entrance of the room, which she had unfortunately wandered too far from. Yet it seemed far worse to cowardly bolt back through those doors, specially after all the things they'd been through.

There were amends to be made and stories to be told.

Tessa swiveled back towards the painting and discovered that the sun was now high enough to shed a beam on the boy. It left her breathless: that bit of celestial theater, a perfect frame for her angel boy. His face was all deepened and defined by strategic shadow and light. His hair was a halo worthy of their heavenly origins. He'd never looked more untouchable.

"You get that from me." Her voice echoed in the room, yet for all that Jace reacted, she wasn't sure she'd spoken at all.

She could feel herself tensing. She suddenly felt trapped. But she was in her own element, surrounded by the treasures her family had plundered, not a _cell. _As there was no hope for escape, nor a reason to abandon this boy, she stood stoically, but with her heart in her hand.

It occurred to her that she hadn't been this helpless in a lifetime. Standing here, she felt as if she were carrying a torch through a long tunnel where she could only see a few feet in front of her at a time, and occasionally demons jumped out at her, or she stumbled across forgotten treasures, or just missed falling into some bottomless pit.

"Tess."

Jace didn't say anything else. He had one hand pressed tight to his ribs and because she couldn't see his face anymore from this angle, she wasn't sure of what would come next.

"You know the story, don't you? Of how Jonathan Shadowhunter, his heart pure, begged the Angel Raziel to grant him power to cleanse this earth of demons. Thus, the Nephilim, made but not begotten." She knew he understood the Nicene Creed. "Another story says that Satan was cast from Heaven together with his angels. The very first demons, the Great Ones, who sired all others. My father was one of those Great Ones, Eidolon, and I was begotten."

Tessa spun on her heels, heading for an ornate ivory throne that had once belonged to a _jinn _responsible for plague that had nearly wippened out Europe. She sat down, eyes firmly on her feet. She didn't want to look at Jace out of fear of his disgust.

"A Great Demon and a mundane will make a warlock, but Great Demon and a Shadowhunter will make something else entirely. A Shadowhunter fully capable of magic. If the child survives that is. When my mother was pregnant with me, the Magister gave a gift that he claimed would save her baby. It was a pyxis of sorts, a prison, for a Son of God. The Angel Ithuriel."

There was a shuffling, and Tessa looked up to watch Jace slowly turn towards her. But he didn't walk to meet her; he waited for her to come to him. So she did, stood up and walked until she was just short. And then tentatively, as though he were a skittish animal, she rested her hand flat over that place when the Herondale star had been burned into the flesh of all her direct descendent. The Mark of Ithuriel.

"He was my guardian angel. His whole existence for eighteen years was to ensure death never reached me. His life force was tied to mine. I carried him in a clockwork necklace never far from my heart. And then there was a night, when I fell asleep against Will, and Ithuriel burned him too so that a part of his angelic fire, would always be with the people I loved most. My son, my daughter, my grandchildren…you."

Apart from the sway of his breath, his body was as unyielding as adamas. His hand remained pressed to his ribs. He looked down at her; she couldn't read his expression.

"I killed the Magister, Jace. I Changed into Ithuriel, I Became an Angel and I nearly died from the fire that runs in their veins. It's a beautiful suffering, that. Angels always were, always are, and always will be. They are everything and Him. Changing into Ithuriel was what freed him from his prison and in return, he never stopped watching over mine." She pressed her hand harder against that birthmark. "Over you."

She hadn't slept well in nearly a fortnight. As she stood there motionless, she couldn't help but feel as hollow as a bell without a clapper. She wanted him to say something, do something. She held her breath for a moment so she wouldn't feel the hurt of his rejection so hard.

She exhaled.

How she hated the silence.

"Is that why he came for me?"

His words shattered her façade. Her eyes burned and the tears began to gather like raindrops.

Tessa nodded. "When Valentine called, Ithuriel had to answer. You are blood of my blood. He was your guardian angel. He wanted no harm to come to you, either."

"He's—" Jace shook his head. She noticed that he was shaking, too. "I couldn't save him at Wayland House. He looked so tired, Tess. I gave him—"

"I know what you did, Jace." She drew closer to him, and closer, so that her body just brushed his, slid her hands down, slipped them through his arms, hooked her arms around his waist. And held him. "You freed him again from the shackles of this world. He returned to his Father."

She could feel his tears against the side of her neck.

"It's not your fault, Jace. Ithuriel was a victim of Fate and his own calling. He did what he was intended to do, protect humanity."

After a moment, his breathing deepened. She closed her eyes and breathed him in. Sunshine.

His hands remained stubbornly by his side. So she held him until he surrendered, which mercifully wasn't long since, despite the fact she was pressed against his bigger body, the cold inside her was insistent. He sighed, the tension eased from him, his body molded to hers. And after a moment, he rested his cheek against the top of her head, and his arms went around her.

He breathed in and out, in and out, and it felt like a gift to feel it, to ease the tension from him.

She pulled him closer. This strong man had come to her for strength, and she knew only gratitude for Ithuriel and Will and Magnus whom they'd made her strong, too. She had courage and strength to spare for this boy.

Her only weakness was him, after all.

"If you have to blame someone, blame me," she murmured, with some difficulty since her cheek was pressed against the wall of his chest. "It's all right if it's too much."

Maybe Jace was too proud to admit his fear and his sadness, maybe his disappointment.

But his arms tightened around her.

She suddenly wanted to look at him, to see him again in the wake of her epiphany. She leaned back in his arms and touched her fingers to his jaw, then his brow and his nose. "You have Ithuriel's eyes, but you are so much Herondale it takes my breath away. Are you disappointed, Jace? Are you angry that I am your family?"

Jace rubbed his chest, directly over his heart, which felt as if it might explode at the sense of wholeness. He didn't want to start crying in front of her. Recently, it felt as if all he did was cry in front of her. "I prayed for this. I _prayed_ that somehow you—I wanted you to be my family. I needed it, Tess. Like air. Like I need Clary. I need you too."

A strangled noise escaped her throat and then tears began to fall freely down her face. "Come with me."

She pulled free of his embrace and turned towards the door.

"But…" Jace was frozen, looking up at Will as if he loathed the idea of leaving his great-great grandfather's portrait.

"I can tell you all about him. I can give you all of his things. He'll never be far from you, Jace. But I want you to see something."

He looked back at Will before he slowly followed her out of the room and out of the mansion. Outside, it was cooler and the wind blew harsher. The climb up the hill was hard on her as the wound was still open. She'd long ago lost Ithuriel's constant protection.

"I brought you to this house instead of Herondale Manor because I wanted you to see that we can be who ever we wish to be." She halted and together they looked over the land that had belonged to her family for centuries. "Starkweathers ruled through fear and death. They killed Downworlders who never harmed mundanes simply because they were different. Starkweathers thrived on that hatred, but I am a Starkweather and I could not love Magnus anymore than I already do. Downworlder or not. I chose to be myself."

Jace continued to look over those Shadowhunter lands, the land their people had cared for since it was given to them by Raziel. Here they had built their home. This place was a living connection to their past and their future. "It feels different, somehow. Now."

Tessa nodded. "Before…" she sighed and shrugged. "You weren't ultimately responsible—you were one step removed. But now you are starting to see things as I do. You're starting to feel what I feel when I stand here and look out over this place—and you are aware of what it really means."

For a moment, they were silent, seeing, sensing, feeling, then she said, "You and I are different from others, even Clary. They are so many generations removed from the Angel that they bond they feel with Heaven isn't as strong as ours. My father may have lost his love for humanity and terrorized this earth, but he was still a Son of God. I am a child of an Angel and you are blood of my blood. And you are Ithuriel's blood, too."

Jace tilted his head, listening, but didn't interrupt.

"When Will turned forty, a difficult age, by the way, he said something to me that I will most likely never forget. He said that if I had to live forever than I would have to find something to work towards. Something to cherish and love for eternity so that I would never lose myself like some immortals have been known to do. I think," Tessa said, feeling his presence like an anchor, "that every moment you and I spend together, whether alone or looking inward, or doing our duty, it's like we are doing exactly what Ithuriel and Raziel would have wanted from us. We are doing what we are meant to do and what we should want to do. It shouldn't just be about us…it should be about those we can protect. That is Heaven's Mandate."

Jace's lips quirked, half grimace, half smile. "Angels on Earth."

Tessa smiled. "In a way."

She slowly sank to the ground, with a blessed smile on her face. Jace sat with her. She wondered how often this would happen between then and suddenly—

"I know what you are thinking."

She looked at him. Raised a brow.

"You are wondering if I'll be immortal too, because of the blood."

She didn't want to give him the satisfaction of now knowing her so well. "It crossed my mind a while back."

"If I am, I'm glad I'll have eternity with you and Clary. I don't want you to be alone ever again," he whispered softly and that nearly broke her down again. She reached for his hand across the grass and smiled tightly. "Incidentally, don't ever take a dagger meant for me."

As immovable as a mountain, and equally impassive, Tessa merely looked at him, arched an arrogant brow. He'd gotten that from _her. _

When he refused to back down, to cave below her superiority, Tessa did an unlikely thing. She rolled her eyes. "I would flatten the world to protect you. Don't forget that. I've already lost so many of the people I loved, Jace. I don't think I could survive if I lost you too."

"I'll do my best to avoid getting caught by that murderous maniac. Again."

Tess chuckled.

In the now peaceful stillness of her mind, the thought that had jarred and jangled as, months before, she'd raced back to New York and then back to the Shadowhunter world, reminded her of the uncertainties, the loneliness, she'd left behind.

Since then, through Jace, she had reclaimed some of that happiness she'd only felt when she'd been with Will and their children. A happiness she'd thought she lost when he'd passed away. An happiness she'd never even felt in those fleeting moments with Jem.

"I have no right to ask for anything else, but if I could ask anything else of Heaven," Jace whispered softly, "I would ask that you'd be happy forever, Tess."

Her heart tightened in her chest and her hand reached across the grass for his. She didn't dare imagine any more happiness in case someone tried to steal this from her.

"Tell me a story," Jace finally said. "Tell me all the stories. Tell me all about Will. Tell me about your children. Tell me about my family. Tell me everything."

"I have the perfect one. About Herondales, Lightwoods, and Fairchilds."

"And Carstairs?"

She nodded, hoping he wouldn't see her lip tremble. "It's a love story."

"I bet I know how it begins." With this inherited Herondale charm, Jace nodded. As he opened his mouth to speak and recited to her favorite book verse, Tessa knew she'd finally have a chance to live, and love, again. She leaned her head against his shoulder as Jace's voice, so much like Will's, broke through the sound of the wind and floated up to him. "_It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way."_

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There was a shift in the air.

Zachariah felt it.

And he knew who it was…as if he could sense it bone deep. Or was it soul deep.

He looked over his shoulder and saw that blond haired, golden-eyed child standing below the arches of the City of Bones.

_She told you._

The boy nodded, sheer determination lighting up his eyes. Never before had he looked so much like Will and Tessa, all burning star and angelic fire.

"I'm going to find a cure for you. I am going to find a cure. I swear to you."

And just like that, Zachariah knew that here stood another Herondale he would always love. And his chance at redemption.

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I wanted to thank all my readers for the support they've shown while this story was being written. I first started writing _Things_ all the way back in 2011. It wasn't meant to be this long but I loved writing these characters. I hope you've enjoyed the end. I know I did. Leave me a review. Tell me if you liked this end. Tell me which chapter was your favorite and what you are looking forward to from _City of Heavenly Fire. _Tell me what you thought of CP2. And finally, stop by _The Herondale Girl_ and pay Gabriel and Cecily a visit. As always, I leave you with all my love. This has been wonderful for me.

-Chair.


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